MPs have sent the Identity Cards Bill back to the Lords amid continuing parliamentary deadlock.
The Commons voted by 292 to 241 in favour of the government on Thursday, a majority of 51.
The continuing dispute centres on proposals to ensure that from 2008 anyone renewing or applying for a passport must also have their details recorded on the national identity register.
Ministers say that the individual details will be recorded in any event as the UK introduces biometric passports.
But both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats continue to oppose the move, saying the link breaches Labour's election pledge to introduce a voluntary scheme.
The legislation has been 'ping ponging' back and fore between the two houses of parliament for weeks.
And the government could eventually be forced to use the Parliament Act to override the objections of the Lords and force the Bill onto the statute book.
Home secretary Charles Clarke said the unelected Lords should "stop trying to frustrate the will of the people".
On using the Parliament Act, he said: "I do not think... we have reached the point where this option should be invoked."
In the Commons, shadow home secretary David Davis said it was "ludicrous" to argue that the scheme was voluntary if anyone wishing to travel abroad was required to take out an ID card.
"Under this Bill ID cards are clearly not voluntary, they are clearly compulsory," he said.
"And the government’s proposal is equally clearly in breach of their own manifesto.
"So this Bill is not the exercise of a democratic mandate. The best that can be said is that it is an exercise of elective dictatorship.
"So the Lords are right to amend it. And they are entirely within their rights to amend it."
For the Liberal Democrats, home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said that the government had "turned its back on the most elementary terms of rational debate".
"If this will be a voluntary scheme, will British citizens be able to withdraw their data from the ID database voluntarily?" he asked.
"I know of no database in operation today which people enter into voluntarily where they are not free to remove their data at a time of their own choosing."
