The scheme, which could amount to one of the biggest security print tenders ever announced, will be trialled this November when the government will begin issuing cards to foreign nationals, followed by aviation workers in 2009.
The British Air Transport Association (BATA) has slammed the scheme, claiming its staff are being used as political pawns. Students, who will be included in the third phase of the rollout, have also condemned the cards as "creepy" and "illegal".
Roger Wiltshire, secretary general of BATA, told PrintWeek: "We do feel we're being used politically. We see no security benefits from the proposals and wrote to the government to demand a rethink."
Elsewhere, pupils aged 16-25 have been using the newly launched site mylifemyid.org to discuss the £4.4bn scheme. So far the vast majority of comments have been negative towards the project.
One student commented: "How do we protect our British freedoms and put a stop to this totalitarian scheme to control our identities?"
Meanwhile, the Conservatives have branded the initial rollout as a ploy to introduce the scheme by stealth.
A Labour Party spokeswoman stepped in to quell these fears, saying the cards are value for money and will provide a simpler and more secure way to process data.
She added: "Our polls have found levels of support for the national identity scheme have remained consistently high at around 60%.
"ID cards will make it much harder to use false or multiple identities by securely linking a person's unique identity to the national identity register using biometrics such as fingerprints."
3M Security Printing and Systems holds the contract to produce the initial run of ID cards.
For more see the Analysis section in the next edition of PrintWeek.
ID card timeline:
May 2008: 3M's security printing arm was appointed by the government as the production partner in the first phase of its ID cards scheme
February 2008: Security printers are awaiting the results of a procurement process to choose who will print the controversial ID card pilot scheme
July 2006: Security printers may have to wait a generation to cash in on government plans for a compulsory identity card, reports from a national newspaper claimed
