CNET News.com reports technical problems have delayed the British government's trials for biometric ID cards by three months. The failure of fingerprint and iris-recognition equipment caused the delay, Home Secretary David Blunkett told members of Parliament this week.

The trial, involving the registration of 10,000 volunteers to record and test biometric ID data, was originally due to launch in February but did not begin until last week. As a result, the length of the project has been cut from six months to three months.

Note how the trial is shortened as a solution to the delay...

A representative for the Home Office told Silicon.com that the problems have now been rectified.

We have to make sure it is correctly configured before launching it. It's essential we get the first installation right before it is rolled out across the country. We'll learn our lessons from this. There were issues of failure in the equipment, but those have been rectified and the technical problems have been ironed out.

Hopefully, famous last words...