According to Kable’s Government Computing:

The UK Border Agency has given a start date to compulsory identity cards, for foreign nationals applying to stay in the country as students or through marriage.

From 25 November, applicants from outside the European Economic Area in these two categories will have to travel to one of six centres to enrol in the National Identity Scheme, which will include having their fingerprints and a photograph taken.

However, a Kable analyst believes this move is largely cosmetic:

Philippe Martin, a senior analyst at Kable, said that non-EEA nationals already need a visa to work or study, and the card will work in the same way. “It’s just a renaming,” he said of the move. “Now they have a visa, and in future they will have an identity card.”