I believe that these ITSO cards are designed to provide many of the “benefits” (to government) and “sanctions” (to card holders) that were later inherited by the government’s crazy ID project.

ps. It has been good to discover that my ITSO smartcard bus-pass really does work on London buses – working as a basic “flash & go” card. (ie. without any tracking via the ITSO database.)

At present, this ITSO card costs me five Pounds every two years for the “passport standard” photos, plus time, plus phone calls, plus postage. It costs my local council considerably more. I hear that its security features have already been “cracked.”