The Passport Service (UKPS) is working with the Home Office on the processes required for integrating the issuing of passports with the planned national identity card scheme.

The government?s ID Cards bill includes plans to set up a new independent government agency to administrate the central identity register at the heart of the scheme and to issue the cards. UKPS will be taken over by the new organisation.

The bill was expected to be passed by Parliament before the widely-anticipated General Election, but was delayed in the Lords and is now likely to be re-introduced by the next government.

According to the UKPS business plan 2005-10, published last week, a key task is establishing the business processes needed to issue passports and ID cards.

?For the period 2007-10 there will be continued development of the passport processes, but also (potentially) full integration with the Identity Cards Scheme, as we move to start issuing British citizens with a passport book/identity card package and to establish the National Identity Register,? says the report.

The first stage of development will be the introduction of the ePassport ? including a chip with a facial biometric ? by the end of this year, with full rollout due by the spring of 2006.

UKPS also acknowledges that electronic fingerprints are likely to be included on passports.

?The recently-established European Union standards for passports require EU Member States to include in their passports both a facial image and fingerprint scans. The UK is currently considering its requirements in light of the EU standards; these will probably impact on future UK passport designs, and fingerprint scans are likely to be incorporated into the passport chip later in the decade,? it says.