The best way for government to make ID cards widespread is to do the following (New approach to ID card scheme).

Make it a criminal offence for anyone, government or commercial, to ask for further proof of identity when an ID card has been presented and an identity confirmation received.

Take responsibility for losses incurred when a properly executed identity check using an ID card returns a false result, whether the losses are the commercial organisation's for a false positive or the individual's for a false negative.

Make it a criminal offence to refuse other identity verification offerings, but leave the organisation freedom to set reasonable rules.

This would still allow the paranoid and the refuseniks to stay out of the system and possibly to stay out of it for only some activities.

Jim Blair