Re: "trying to come up with new forms of ID card"
It's not technically any different to the way ID verification attempts to work now.
To get a passport, you ask several other organisations and people to state that you are in fact you, and then sign to say that you agree.
That's a "web of trust", based on the applicant producing paper documents.
Using PGP signatures to assert the same would be neither difficult nor expensive. The local storage of each individual's private key would be troublesome - people lose or break stuff all the time, and some cannot remember a suitable password.
The main reason it won't happen is because it would be very difficult for Capita to make money from screwing it up, because it does not need large centralised infrastructure to operate.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
