Slashdot Mirror
A Look Into National ID Cards
mr.buddylee writes "Last month Slashdot reported a Popular Science story on your privacy. This month the magazine has a couple different articles about the future of security after the attacks on 9/11. Included is a very interesting read on National ID Cards which looks at possible technologies integrated into the card. For instance, how would you like a memory strip containing a digitized image of your fingerprints, your photo, your medical history and flight history stored in your wallet? All secured with what could be a less than secure Smart Card."
A chance to have all of my medical history, flight history, biometrics, and banking info all in one place?
<SARCASM>
Where do I sign up?
</SARCASM>
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Your papers please.
Been with the scene since Dos 3.0 and ZModem, use and love Linux, programmed for 5 years in NYC... hate DRM and DMCA for the freedoms they take away, 2600 should have won their court case in regards to DeCSS...
So why do I want a National ID card? Because right now, show a NY cop an out-of-state ID that is HORRIBLY fake, and he will almost never be able to reconize it. Scores of states (like 50 or something, right?) and scores of ID's all different. It makes no sence. With a standard, everyone would be familiar with it, and security measures would be better. They would! I know I know... "better like SSL assh0le" I might hear... but I would say "better like US currency". Imagine if every state had it's own dollar bill like it used to? Sometimes standards make a good base. LSB comes to mind. If someone gets smart and included eyeball biomentric (cause every other can be easily faked) then the system might work.
And if you think that the "feds" might get at your pr0n or your precious hard drive with a national id, it's nothing they can't do anyway already. I could see only benefits. What would a national ID do in terms of taking away freedoms? Nothing I can see, though I'd love to learn something new.
Now I live in a place where we do have a ID card, although very low tech.
I think this card looks cool but there is a couple of issues.
Once this new standard is in place everywhere, image having a faulty card. With all the gadets on it, I'd say you would have to take better care of it than your PDA.
So a lot of places would require you to show this card, like taking a loan, getting a card to renting videos, etc. Would I like every shop be able to view all the data that the card could contain. I don't think so.
I would be good to get a single standard id, that is accepted and hard/impossible to fake and that everyone knows what look like.
It seems to me that the current databases of information has shown to be less than 100% correct, ahrm. So it would be needed to verify each and everyone from scratch so give the card any value. What use is it that you know that the card indeed belongs to the person who carries it, if that information was wrong to begin with.
my sig
Whether the information is on the physical card makes no difference. In fact, most likely you would not want to store much information on the card. Only the basic: name, address, physical characteristics, digitized picture, and that sort should be stored on the card. Just enough to make it roughly equivalent to a current ID, but a bit stronger.
For any effective system, the DB should be centrally managed. Both for revocation of ID's, and for security of the sensitive content.
The card has the person's private key, stored in a physically secure chip. That key can be authenticated against the government's issuing authority (as can the validity of the data on the card).
Then, data can be accessed from the central DB, according to the privileges allowed the requestor of the data, on the authority of the cardholder.
There are obvious security / privacy concerns. Particularly if the entity you fear abuse from the most is the government. But, it has the potential to offer a lot more privacy and security than current completely insecure systems.
Most proposed plans for a national ID have suggested that state DMV's should be the ones to hand these out -- but the last few decades have seen hundreds of cases of corrupt DMV employees giving out drivers licenses for cash. It's hard to imagine any other agency you might choose being much different.
And in a world where this card is believed to be `secure' for so many more purposes, such cases will do even more damage than they already do, because people will be even less likely to question the documents before their eyes.
So even if there were not serious privacy concerns with a national ID system, it is at best highly unlikely that it would buy any real security gains in return for the great cost and bureaucratic overhead it would introduce.
Put differently: you thought standing in line at the DMV sucked now-- just imagine what it would be like after the people who brought you the IRS and the INS got done with it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd have to say that, while 1984 is not without its merits, Brave New World is much more accurate. Globalization has replaced imperialism, power goes into fewer and fewer hands (political and economic). Corporate control is comparable to the heat conditioning and the conditioned rejection of education. Ford has replaced god; instead of Ford we'll most likely have AOL-Time-Warner-Microsoft-whatever, but you get the point.
The book is about globalization, which I think is far more alive than oppressive government. The latter is only getting started. Meanwhile, we are very familiar with the former
It seems like anytime people respond with references to 1984, we've already lost any ability to compromise. So I hope that some of technologies most adept would be willing to come up with some ideas on what the solution is, rather than restating the problem and saying how we are all going to die and all that.
We already have infringement on our privacy, of course. Cops stop your car and ask people for their driver's licenses all the time. This is okay, since we don't want people without licenses driving. The rest of it is okay to that is on the card, since its okay to make sure the car is not stolen and that the person is who they say they are.
We already produce our social security number when we apply for employment or enroll for college.
Are the privacy advocates against these forms of identification?
If not, then rather than attacking every incarnation of a national identification system, propose a solution. Make a position on how far is too far as far as identification goes. Come up with a compromise.
Do you want separate medical cards (for doctors and hospitals), security cards (for airports and bands, and general cards (for street police and any of the above) instead of one card with all the above information on it? Do you want laws written on who can legally ask for the information on the card? Do you want all the information stored on the card or available in an online database? If the later, then do you want the ability to say who has access to this up-to-date information (such as former employees)?
Regardless of what the radicals believe, we (at least in the US) still live in a constitutional system. We have a Bill of Rights that guarentees we'll never come close to the kind of dystopia in 1984. That would require a radical overthrowing of our government.
Just like the restrictions placed on software, we should not complain that a certain restriction is bad, but rather remind people when and where we step the line.
In otherwords, say what you want or don't complain when you don't get it.
(this is aimed a many of the comments posted here on slashdot, if there are real privacy organization doing the above, then I wish the best)
In the current system, with separate IDs for every agency, there is no way for a cop who looks at your driver's license to also check out your employment history, credit rating, drug prescriptions, criminal records, religious affiliation, or anything else not associated with your driving records. The cop could not call up the AMA and find your drug prescriptions because there is no unique, persistent relationship between your driver's license and medical record. No, I hate to break it to you, but your name, birthdate, address, and phone number are not unique, persistent identifiers.
If there were a single national ID for every person, someone looking at your driver's licence could call your doctor and find out your medical history through this ID that you, and you alone, have which he now has access to. So could a bouncer that checked your age. With a national ID, everyone will be able to find out everything about everyone else.
It gets worse. What if someone steals your national ID? Now they have access to everything about you; they can withdraw all your money, take your drug prescriptions, sell your house, get your passport, enroll you in political parties or movements, take over your life.
To escape this you would have to get a new national ID. Consider the amount of grief you go through to cancel your credit cards. Now imagine you have to the the same thing for every form of personal identification you ever used in your entire life. It would be a nightmare, but that's only the start. The new ID would be that of a completely new person, there would be no way to revoke all the times you had used the ID in the past. The person who stole your card would become you, and you would be a different person.
A universal national ID would be a privacy and civil liberties disaster; the people opposing it are not idiots. I agree it's a nuisance to have separate driver's licences, blue cross, library cards, employee ID, and so on, but someone who would give up liberty for convenience deservers neither.
But, given the fact that we all NEED a Social Security card to WORK,
Really...good luck finding that law...it doesn't exist. (You are refering to De Facto practice)
a Drivers Licence to DRIVE,
The ability to travel freely is the essence of liberty; it is a natural, irrevokable, right. That right doesn't change because your personal property uses an engine. The requirment of a licence to travel in any fashion is an abomination of freedom.
I am a long standing Libertarian (As in lp.org [lp.org], not liberal), and I am very for the National ID.
You're what us principaled (real) libertarians and anarchists call a Republican in Drag . What you are is a very confused statist. It's a shame the Libertarian Party has been consumed by your type. The LP was the last hope, and now all hope is lost...