Slashdot Mirror
Feds To Have Unified Biometric Federal ID System
An anonymous submitter writes "There have been rumors flying among the scientific community about a proposed standard for 'Personal Identity Verification' by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). According to the standard, all federal employees and contractors would require a 'PIV "card" that is "personalized" with data needed by the PIV system to later grant access to the subscriber to Federal facilities and information systems.' Besides the likely efficacy questions, concerns in the scientific community concern what impact this will have on our foreign collaborations (or even grad students)."
If you're a foreign researcher or student, photo ID includes the passport from your country of origin. PIV requires going to wherever they give these out, supplying an array of biometric information, submitting to yet another background check, etc.
This bites. I am a Canadian graduate student and my group collaborates with a DoE lab in the United States. Already, this lab has had problems with foreign collaborators who are not from Canada, Europe or Australia being denied entry to the country. This lab has already lost some of its top people due to Homeland Security kicking them out (i.e. not renewing their visas). Furthermore, they have had problems bringing in collaborators with unique expertise required to upgrade laboratory equipment.
Our Canadian group sends undergraduate and graduate students to this lab to gain experience through our collaboration. We have a large stake in this lab, and have a lot of equipment there. If we can't send our undergraduates and master's students, because of the long wait times to go through the background check, then what is the point of collaborating with the US? We'll have to pack up our equipment and send it to our collaborators in Germany or Sweden.
Long live Schrodinger's cat...
The military has moved to using Common Access Cards as our IDs, and in a lot of places are required to use it for network access, medical facilities, etc and can act as a PKI smartcard. It was only a matter of time before Biometrics were rolled into it.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
The USA has already suffered a significant drop in the number of foreign grad students enrolling. The number one reason given for this drop is intrusive and over-bearing background checks, a long waiting period and capricious immigration officials.
i d= 276464&page=1
Don't care about foreigners? You should, as many institutions are now struggling to maintain student numbers. This has implications for funding, which in turn has implications for future research, which in turn has implications for the USA's future prosperity. The November issue of IEEE Spectrum has a short article on this.
Think the foreign grad students can be replaced by domestic students? Nope, the US education system is falling further behind in science education. See this article:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?
The Bush regime is rapidly pushing the USA towards facism, and the American people are too wrapped up in their own jingoism to see or care about it.
For your information, I never in my life experienced such raw and open racial hatred as when I contracted in the New York area. Not in the South, Midwest, or West.
All sorts of benefits are being touted; David Blunkett, Home Secretary, had this to say regarding these cards use:
Of course, he fails to mention that ID cards didn't stop the Madrid bombings (Spain has ID cards). He also failed to mention the scope of access of previous projects was way too broad which'll probably happen again (e.g. the Food Standards Agency at one time had full access to all you e-mail and surfing habits thanks to the R.I.P. bill, as well as local councils!). But then, there are many, many flaws and concerns. Originally they were supposed to be _purely_ for identification purposes, but compulsion and links to public services/benefits are being pushed, as well as circumventing checks and balances such as this case of forcing employers to check their staff with the National ID Register even though it'll be illegal to force a check, until they become compulsory, at least.
It's all very disturbing, the public really doesn't want them so the government's conducting heavily-loaded research to lie with, then they can use statistics to pretend the people are in favour. The costs will be prohibitive, with the money much better spent on the likes of education & healthcare, but they've got the bit firmly between the teeth and are serious about imposing these on us, whether we like it or not.
For more details check out No2ID.net and read the concerns of Privacy International in their (slightly old but still relevant) ID Card FAQ.