Firms selected for 4.7 bln pound ID card programme

LONDON (Reuters) - The government announced on Friday the five technology companies it will work with on its controversial 4.7 billion pound identity card scheme over the next 10 years.

The Identity and Passport service said it had offered "framework" contracts to Computer Sciences Corporation, EDS, Fujitsu, IBM and Thales.

The decision was widely expected after three other companies, Accenture, BAE Systems and Steria dropped out of the running earlier this year.

The selected firms will now be invited to bid in a series of tenders, including an interim 10 million pound system over three years to issue identity cards to 200,000 airport workers.

Three other contracts, each worth around 500 million pounds over 10 years, will also be offered to the firms in the coming weeks:

-- a replacement of Britain's existing passport application and enrolment system, now run by Siemens

-- a database to store photographs and fingerprints, replacing a smaller system currently run by Sagem

-- a card production system, to be awarded in 2009.

The Conservative Party, riding high in opinion polls, has pledged to scrap the ID scheme if it wins power at the next election, due by 2010.