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France May Require Biometric ID Cards
Will Affleck-Asch writes "According to an article on Infoworld today, France may require her citizens pay for new identity cards that hold their biometric information in electronic format. The French government outlined its plan last month to replace the identity cards and passports offered to French citizens with new ones that carry a microchip containing digitized photographs and fingerprints. The plan is to introduce the passports in 2006, and the identity cards a year later. Citizens haven't been forced to carry ID cards since 1955."
You can bet if the French think it's a good idea, the US will put current plans on hold.
1984 has come and gone already. Let's get with the program France! What's takin' you so long.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It goes against my libertarian leanings to support something like a biometric card but I do think it would help make the world safer in the long run. I'm sure the inevitable "Hitler made people have papers!" posts will soon follow but it's a much different world now.
I would object far less to having biometric data on an ID card if it were a one-way hash than if it's storing a copy of my fingerprint/retina scan. Can the biometric data be hashed and the hash used for verification instead? Like what we do for passwords... the scary thing about someone being able to get an electronic copy of the data is the ability to make a replica.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
"My name is George W Bush, my voice is my passport. Please verify me."
Um..... I hate to point it out to you, but if the government gave those cards out "free" the people would be PAYING for them in taxes.
Aint nothing from the government that doesnt come out of someones pocket, except hot air.
And how much will thay make you pay 100, 200, 300 or more?
Forgive me if I am missing the point, but is not the purpouse of biometrics to REMOVE potentially compromised security keys, like ID cards? Biometrics, as I understand the science, allows an individual to use their body as a form of ID. Trust beaurrocrats to get the complete wrong idea about technologies.
I don't believe such strategies help. Using extreme means to eradicate extremism, spawns extremism. When people are humiliated, they tend to react. I'm not saying that the average citizen will feal humiliated, but a few will take it as a sign of a corrupt and bad government. Freedom can't be guarded with a gun! Freedom can only be guarded by true freedom, where the people has seen the freedom, and wants it. And is ready to defend it. Not with guns, but with pacifistic methods, like Mahatma Gandhi did. He was inferior to the british commonwealth, yet he managed to free his people from slavery. This is the opposite. The trend now is to use violence for everything.
Ah, I'll be modded down for that one, but it is a important point I think!Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
Walking down the street to get me some gum, show the doorman my credentials so I can leave my own building. Show the officer on the street corner my papers so that I can continue walking down the street. Pause at the front entrance of the store to flash some ID. Show my valid cards at the counter when I buy some gum. Walk again past the officer who again asked for my papers. Show my credentials to the doorman who lets me back inside my apartment.
I'll need to hire someone to stand outside my apartment to check my ID to be completely safe from bad guys.
Wait the bad guys have computers too?!? Then it's all for naught
*DrugCheese rants*
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
Robert A. Heinlein
Now that's a death ray!
Hrm, I have a feeling the DNA pool of humans is larger than the a-z of the alphabet.
Are you aware of any hashes that don't depend on invariable inputs? I don't know of any biometric measures that are used for security that can be measured with any reasonable hope of invariance.
No, it's the same world, we're just within arm's reach of the savages who populate the rest of it now.
One man's religion is another man's belly-laugh. - LL
We already have biometric data on our passports. It's called a photograph.
Can somebody explain to me:
A lot of the identity card/biometrics scare I hear seems nothing more than fear of the unfamiliar versus technology for technology's sake. This just seems like more of the same.
But, there will always be variations when the device takes a reading. So, it will always hash to a different value!
I mean, not France! Not ze warmongering imperialistic decadent amerikans with ze dumb govermnet and evil degradation of liberties we thumb our collective noses at you! France!!??
That cannot be. I'm shocked.
It sounds like a French passport costs about as much right now as it does in the U.S., but I guess a lot of people randomly choose not to renew or even obtain them, thus limiting their revenue stream.
...imagine an unwashed, French slipper on a human face -- for ever.
... that shit ain't funny. When you laugh at that joke the terrorists win! (and baby jesus cries).
...it will make it easier to detain and deport illegal Muslim immigrants from the Maghreb. Seems like a pretty crappy reason to implement a national biometric card system if its going to be used to harass minorities.
to their new Biometric Identity card overlords
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
This is misleading. While there is no "National ID Card", You're required by law to carry ID at all times in France, and the police may ask to see it at their discretion.
A less confusing way of putting it would have been, "While a national ID card hasn't existed in France since 1955, French people are required carry some form of valid ID with them."
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I'm hoping (and frankly, expecting) some pretty strong negative reaction from the French citizenry. They have a bad history with ID cards (for reasons I shall respectfully not mention) and I dare say that the French are more alarmed by ID cards than citizens in anglo countries. They have a more intense concept of anonymity vis a vis the state.
Even here in North America, New Brunswick and Quebec have some of the most lenient driver's licensing laws. Unless things have changed, neither province requires the photo on the license, and Quebec is the only jurisdiction in, possibly the world, which issues a driver's license with a digital photograph and the photograph is not archived. That's a level of freedom that's been lost to most of the world's citizens in just 10-15 years.
From October 2006 the US will require any person from an EU state entering the US without a visa to have a biometric passport.
This is why many EU governments are rushing through plans for biometric passports. Unfortunately, someone, somewhere seems to believe that because the systems to support biometric passports will have to be paid for anyway (thanks Dubya), we may as well go ahead and have biometric ID cards.
Actually, I seem to remember reading that the October deadline has been moved forward...
Well, the reason I asked it instead of stating it is because I'm not sure if some supersmart person figured out a way to mitigate the normal variation which would happen while reading the biometric information, perhaps using redundancy in some fashion. Smart people do amazing things all the time which seem counterintuitive.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Riiiight.
Unfortunately, France routinely gives new IDs to illegal immigrants who have purposefully destroyed their IDs and passports in order to avoid deportation (if the French police doesn't know which country you're from and you don't tell them, then they can't deport you!)
Moreover, once, in Paris, I saw a protest in which hundreds of illegal aliens were marching and chanting to demand regularization of their status! Meanwhile, the cops were watching.
So since the spineless French government gave up on even pretending to enforce its immigration laws, I fail to see how this new pose would increase domestic security. It's all a pretense.
A country cannot solve its lack of courage and its indecisiveness by mandating a new widget. Especially when history shows that this new widget will be distributed to every warm pibedian who forcefully asks for it.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Kidnappers can now safely ensure that they only abduct foreign nationals, rather than their own countrymen. The first "contactless Catch-A-Frog circuits (TM)" for dramatically increased targetting (e.g. to single out only "Christians with an academic degree") and extortion profits are probably being assembled as we speak...
It may be compulsory to carry it but it does not have to be readable.
I guess I'll microwave mine as soon as I get it, good luck for the identity theft then!
Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, but at least it's an ethos.
In the UK, it appears that, having had the government's draconian ID card plans rejected (for the time being), they're planning to start the biometric-isation process early, by adding compulsory fingerprints to our passports. However, it also appears that this doesn't need democratic consent - they can just do it whenever they feel like. Oh, and bury it halfway through a busy election campaign too.
These fingerprints will, you guessed it, be stored on a gigantic database that the police can consult whenever they feel like.
May I suggest that anyone in the UK who finds these plans... disturbing... lets someone know about it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/
"for reasons I shall respectfully not mention"
I will mention it. The French *in general* were strong collaborators of the Nazi's. Vichy France (i.e. most of it) strongly supported Nazi Germany to the point that they were actively fighting the Americans and British in north africa.
Add then the french wonder why we don't like them.
Did you know that the US government actually will require biometric identifiers in passports of those visitors who want to enter the US without a visa (i.e. tourists and business travelers from western Europe, Japan, Australia etc. who come for up to 90 days). See the US department of state's press release extending the deadline for requiring biometric identifiers in passports.
It's not like the French thought of this all by themselves, some of the driver is actually US homeland security (although Germany's interior minister Schily was pushing for biometric passports as well).
"... And your main fear of the government is?..."
"Well, cloning, obviously! I mean, look at me... I'm gorgeous!"
- Bucky Katt
Every major french citizen (i'm one i should know) is forced to carry an ID card since the Vichy regim during the second world war.
And when a cop ask you for it, you have to show it or be arrested.
In fact like in any "latin law" country this law is not really enforced but is here for the convenience of the cops.
I don't know any french against this state of fact.
It's true it can be abused by racist cops on minorities, but which law could'nt be abused by the authorities.
Choose good authorities, or no at all but don't try to make people believe there are perfect laws.
BOOOOO!
I don't know if you've noticed but the US is now requiring biometric passports to allow entry on the Visa Waiver Program.
m s/telegr ams_1393.html
e.g.
http://travel.state.gov/visa/laws/telegra
So, next time the bombers will have to get visas to enter the country... Just like last time.
Deleted
Nah. They'd probably just rip your eyeballs out.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
I would hazzard a guess and say that one reason they are doing this is to subsidize french IT.
-The French got behind smart cards from their inception.
-Sagem is one of the leaders in AFIS. (automatic fingerprint identification system) They provide a whole lot of biometric hardware and software technology to countries that can afford to install it.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
To be decided in the Senate and the House/Senate Conference Committee is the Real ID Act of 2005 sponsored by F. James Sensenbrenner. This will be a backdoor defacto National ID through your driver's license. Included is a linked database known as the Driver License Agreement as sponsored by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. States will be required to sign it in order for given state driver's license to accepted when dealing with the Federal Gov't such as boarding an airplane or train.
Included in the Driver License Agreement is sharing information not only within the US but with Canada and Mexico (pg 4, item 11 in PDF Document). Required in the database is identity theft type of information such as your Social Security number. Also the Driver License Agreement as a side "benefit" requires your state to punish you with points for a traffic offense anywhere within North America. So a speeding ticket from a vacation in Cancun, Mexico or Montreal, Quebec, Canada will tarnish your home state driving record and as an insult to injury, your insurance goes up !
There is not much time left to defeat this legislation. It is attached to HR1268 - Emergency Appropriations for Iraq, Tsunami Relief. The Senate has removed it but the House will insist on the Real ID Act of 2005 in conference committee and we need to let our Senator's know that we are against this. Information to Contact Congress web link.
The biometric data's on the card to prove that the card is genuine.
For obvious reasons you already have your retina and fingers with you at all times. An ID card is simply a cheap and convenient mechanism for mapping you to a database record somewhere (possibly cached on the card itself). If retinal or fingerprint scanners were cheap enough there would be no need for the card. But you'd still need the database and you'd still need to be in it.
But what should go in the database?
The ID card would probably contain fingerprint data and a digital signature saying that the government recognizes the fingerprint as that of one of its citizens. The fingerprint doesn't even need to be connected to the person's identity.
Without that, how could scanners at airports and other public locations decide to accept or reject a person based on her fingerprint ? Send it to a big-brother-esque central database, uh ? OK, the scanner still needs to download a list of revocated IDs from time to time.
ID + fingerprint = something you have + something you are.
Why is this bad again? You think that going into other states or countries and breaking their laws should have no effect on your driving privileges?
Ass.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=biometric+hash
First result:
Biometric hash based on statistical features of online signatures
Vielhauer, C. Steinmetz, R. Mayerhofer, A.
Abstract: Presents an approach to generating biometric hash values based on statistical features in online signature signals. Whilst the output of typical online signature verification systems are threshold-based true-false decisions, based on a comparison between test sample signals and sets of reference signals, our system responds to a signature input with a biometric hash vector, which is calculated based on an individual interval matrix. Especially for applications, which require key management strategies, hash values are of great interest, as keys can be derived directly from the hash value, whereas a verification decision can only grant or refuse access to a stored key. Further, our approach does not require storage of templates for reference signatures, thus increases the security of the system. In our prototype implementation, the generated biometric hash values are calculated on a pen-based PDA and used for key generation for a future secure data communication between a PDA and a server by encryption. First tests show that the system is actuality able to generate stable biometric hash values of the users and although the system was exposed to skilled forgeries, no test person was able to reproduce another subject's hash vector.
I hate to burst your bubble, but your fingerprint will always be tied to your identity.
The whole scheme is very secretive, but from what we know, all citizens will have to take about 50 pieces of personal data, their eyeballs and £80 to a registration centre for the dubious pleasure of being entered into a national database. Their fingerprints and iris patterns will be digitised and a hash generated from each. The hash is then written to the chip on the card. the idea of the government is that soon Britain will have tens of thousands of biometric readers at paces like airports, police stations, hospitals and doctors. Whenever you need a service, enter or leave the country or get arrested you'd have to produce the card.
It won't be compulsory (at first) to carry a card, but it will be compulsory to register and keep your personal data up-to-date. The card is not yours, instead it remains the property of the government and can be withdrawn at any time on the say-so of the Home Secretary.
Last year the government conducted a trial of 10,000 people and promised to tell us the results before the ID card bill was brought before Parliament. Well they've had one go at getting the bill through but ran out of time before Parliament's dissolution - and we still haven't seen the results of the trials. Which is kind of suspicious - surely if everything is hunky dory then they would have been shouting it from the rooftops?
As for reliability, the Home Office (think Ministry of the Interior) doesn't seem to know the difference between false positive matches between two biometrics (where one person is mistaken for another) and false negatives (where a person isn't recognised at all). In written answers they only ever cite a failure rate based on the very low false positives - NEVER the much higher failure rate for false negatives. BUT positive confirmation of identity is the entire reason for their introduction.
The general feeling of IT experts is that the scheme will rocket in price and never work properly - but that millions of people will be inconvenienced and perhaps thousands have their lives ruined by the cards.
So for those UK people reading (hello!) - Labour is the only party promising to introduce ID cards. The Tories made no mention of it in their manifesto and have gradually gone off of the scheme. The LibDems, Greens and nationalist parties are all opposed. If you don't want ID cards, then the nice people at No2ID will be able to help.
Maybe it would be easier to jump to the next stage and tatoo 666 on everyone's hand with their biometric info encoded. What happend to Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite. I suppose as long as everyone has an identity card then we have Fraternite and Egalite.
Every major french citizen (i'm one i should know) is forced to carry an ID card since the Vichy regim during the second world war.
And when a cop ask you for it, you have to show it or be arrested.
In fact like in any "latin law" country this law is not really enforced but is here for the convenience of the cops.
I don't know any french against this state of fact.
It's true it can be abused by racist cops on minorities, but which law could'nt be abused by the authorities.
Choose good authorities, or no at all but don't try to make people believe there are perfect laws.
You are welcome to your interesting viewpoint. As you probably know, most people in the US think differently about this.
James Madison:
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In forming a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
James Madison again:
"A people armed and free forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression."
Now if anyone tries to require such a card in the US we can simply accuse them of being France-like and it'll never get approved. I knew 'freedom fries' would come in handy one day.
That the U.S government require all european visa waving countries to implement a biometric passport before october 2005. If they don't their countries citizens have to have a visa to enter the u.s. It's slightly of topic but alot of people including me don't have an ID card except their passport. Just my 0.2
Liberté, égalité, fraternité, ou la mort!
Rings a bell?
Oh, horror!
If the police know my fingerprints - I (as an honest royal subject) will be practically imprisoned in my own home whilst all the criminals get off scott free.
Other than the slippery slope arguments of 'what if a nasty bunch get in power', what do I have to fear from the police checking fingerprint records.
I'd have thought that it would be beneficial in many investigations.
Of course the data could be wrong, and fingerprints aren't unique, but those factoids don't appear to be a part of your argument.
?
You call pictures and fingerprints biometric?
Please, I got my voter's credential here. It's got my picture and my fingerprints. Does it make it "biometric"?
Mon nom est George W Bush, ma voix est mon passeport. Veuillez me vérifier.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
Here at Brasil we have lots of documents, each one with "unique" numbers to identify them...
The problem is that experience has proved that none of this numbers are really unique, one can claim that lost his old document and get a new one with a different ID. So the governament is still trying to figure out some way to create a unified way to identificate the citzens.
This is not as bad as it sounds, a unified database is the holy grail of our public healthcare system (yeah, we have one). This way the Hospitals can access the history of any patient, and check if he is alergic to some medicine or if he has some cronical disease, etc.
With biometry the identification can be done even if the patient is not awake, or has lost his ID card. This would be of enourmous help on emergencies, to quickly identify the victms of acidents and to contact their relatives.
Congrats to France, a realy good idea.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Getting someone's fingerprint or photo, as proposed for passports is not that difficult anyway.
Don't like to get into this Nazi discussion, but to answer your question: YES.
As a Dutchman, I read a while ago that most jews deported from the Netherlands during WWII, weren't caught on the streets by German soldiers, but snitched on/given away by fellow countrymen. It wasn't Germans that found them, but Dutch people themselves that destroyed the lives of their (jewish) neighbours, in exchange for rewards, immunity, some favours, whatever. All the German command needed to do, was put out those rewards, and follow the leads they received.
And German soldiers that drove these people in the gas chambers, you say they had no choice? Sure, a refusal to obey orders might have meant a bullet on the spot, but don't kid yourself here: These soldiers knew what was going on, and sure had the choice of saying: "NO, I won't do this. If you'll shoot me then, do what you have to, but I won't co-operate with this". Instead they chose (en masse) to push these millions of victims towards their death.
This is very comparable to US anti-terrorism propaganda of the last few years. Sure, terrorism is a problem, but have US actions made the world a safer place? I think when the next generation Bin Ladens have grown up, we'll see how much damage the US has done to world peace and eh... 'freedom'.
Now if US citizens wish to screw up their own lives: okay, have fun. But the sad part: Their bullying of allies and smaller countries makes many countries follow their lead. Just the other day, a Dutch airliner heading for Mexico, was refused passage through US air space. Terrorists on board? Who knows, but essentially it's the US setting the agenda in many parts of the world, even if measures are violating local law. Like passenger data that's turned over to US intelligence, possibly in violation of European law.
And the scary part: all this propaganda has caused US citizens to really believe that terrorism is the #1 problem in the world. Are you kidding me? Worse than poverty? Worse than hunger? HIV? Civil wars? Let's face it: how many people are killed each year by terrorist acts? I suspect even plane crashes (world's safest way of travel) kill more people. My chances of getting struck by lightning are way higher than running into a Bin Laden follower. And speaking of the man, I fear the results of Mr. Bush's actions more than this terrorist turning up at my doorstep. Mr. Laden, if you're reading this: I don't like you either, but you're welcome at my place for a coffee and exchange of thoughts. Mr. Bush, if you're reading this, you're welcome here for a good kick in your b*tt.
Freedom starts with saying: NO! Live free, or die. You can take away my life, but you can't take away my freedom. Damn, I love these quotes ;-)
I should also note that in many systems no server copy of the prints or templates is kept. All the information is on the card. However, I would guess that governments would tend to keep such information if given the chance.
Lasers Controlled Games!
A neural net could do that. It can detect pattern in noisy input.
Votator.com implements a fair voting scheme (free
This has to be the worst dupe ever. How often has slashdot covered this?
The *entire European union* will require biometrics stored in contactless chips (RFID) in a passport. The EU didn`t think of this all by itself, the US forced it. If the EU doesn`t go along fast with this billion dollar hype it`s citizens will have to get a visa to visit the US. (How are US plans for this coming along?)
The biometrics are two fingerprints and a digital portrait. The last one will be to low resolution for camera surveilance but ofcourse this wont stop people from trying. Face it(no phun), the words "false positive" sound complicated and no politician is going to bother to look like caring about these words. Ofcourse you can translate them to "huge lines at the airport", "tens of innocent people questioned on ever major airport every day" (So mister Bin Laden, how did you turn into an asian twelve year old?).
Want to hear some of the argumentation behind this? Yes you do! Implementing passports with biometric identifiers will be a great business opertunity, especially for the business that get to build the hardware for this stuff... Boy do I wish I was making this up.
Of course the people who sell biometrics are alway happy to tell how many people on this planet have the same fingerprint and face. wanna guess? Its always a very low number, like zero. In fact they keep saying this over and over. They never have any time left to mention that:
a. biometric comparisons always allows for lots of differences because no one want`s to hold up a line at the airport because of a mismatch due to some sweat.... every time someone sweats one these occasions.
b. cheap fingerprint scanners are fooled by gummy bear taste gelatine prints, pressing bags of water on the scanner.... or just blowing on it. Can you blame these vendors for not mentioning this? Maybe not, they are afterall, very busy in this "post 911 world". Or so they keep saying.
Ofcourse it doesn`t stop here. Other bright ideas going on the the EU:
- Giving US three leter ancronym agencies read access to all airline booking systems. If airlines refused they couldn`t land in the US, now they comply they might be send back midair from time to time. But hey, what are the chances of someone matching a name on a list of 70,000 names? (If you think this list sounds to short, don`t worry adding names is easy, no evidence of anything is required)
- Storing traffic data for every telephone or Internet connection in the EU... Depending on the phase of the moon this data consists of telephone call data, GSM location data and ofcourse URL`s of every site visited and headers for send and/or received mail. Yes I mean storing everything about the communication of everyone....
Apparently the words terabyte`s/day, gigabyte`s/sec and innocent until proven guilty have to be reinvented.Meanwhile Italy, Germany and Sweden are investigating what heaponed to a some of their citizens. They where kidnapped by the CIA and sent to places that make abu graib look like the holiday in... Ofcourse these investigations arent about getting justice for these people, they are just about making things difficult for the national goverment for allowing these kidnap operations.
Anyway, it seamed like the right time for an European update on these things.
Reminds me of that prefect from Les Miserables (by Victor Hugo) who wanted to make a census of a small town and find out where each person came from, what their past history was, etc. The main character, the mayor of this town, tried to talk that dude out of it.
Fscking French Facists
Q. What is Calvin's monster snowman called? A. The Torment Of Existence Weighed Against The Horror of Non Being
Once everyone indifferently accepts this, you'll start seeing stories in the media about murderers, terrorists, etc. stripping off their finger prints with acid.
The idea of something more 'secure' such as subcutaneous rfid will seem acceptable to the masses eventually.
It proves once again that the typical reader of this site is a whiny american lardass.
Um... I lived in France for several years, and everyone, citizen or foreigner, was required to carry an I.D. at all times. One of my friends was caught without identification, and was required to bring it to the police station the next day. I remember going along with him.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey
Why bother?.. do they think it will lead to more safty in france? All i see out of this is trouble. Soo there will be fake cards, with god knows who, accessing god knows what. I may be Paranoid, so be it. But i really do not see the point.
I am French, and terribably sorry for my spelling.
/.'ers can't see the forest amongst the trees. Forget the banter of privacy issues seen through an american constitutional lens - no other western nation comes close - the real issue promulgated here is the silent immigration fears sweeping Europe as a whole. Their professed liberal civil governance here is being challenged, if not overthrown. Here's the irony, they NEED this for more than the US. The pragmatic voices in their security aparatus have outruled the reigning wisdom of the internationalist crowd; Le Monde/PMs, etc. And yes, this is largely a muslim issue. A stagnant birth rate and a booming 10%+ muslim population has the country beyond nervous. Of course, its hypocritical, but don't confuse the realists (minority) with the spoon-fed projected fears of their published voices and the bitter miscalculations of their leaders.
Perhaps because of the variations on due process. Other countries have different standards such as driving laws and due process rights (if allowed). In Mexico, you are guilty even if you didn't commit a given offense. A Mexican court is just a formality which they rubber stamp you being guilty.
As for other states, it is a well known fact that cops prefer to bust non-residents for minor offenses since it is very inconvenient to go back and challenge the ticket, easy money for their coffers. I live in a state where they don't penalize for minor offenses committed in other states. Remember, traffic tickets is not about safety, it is about revenue enhancement. Some states choose to protect their residents from out of state cop abuse by not penalizing their driving records with out of state tickets. That should be a state decision, not a Federal Mandate. Hell, go to some states and you get a kangaroo court treatment for a ticket such as what use to be in New Rome, Ohio.
On the word privilege, where do we get this notion that driving is a privilege subject to draconian gov't regulation ? Common law does not apply to driving a motor vehicle even though it is a constitutional right to travel. Driving should be a right. Privilege means subject to the whim of the gov't. It can go as far as if some bureaucrat dislikes you, he can refuse you a given privilege.
Laws should be written to where it is better that a few guilty people don't get punished versus the draconian trend of justice must be meted out at all cost even if a few innocent people are punished.
"Let them eat snake"
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
Fortunately Montana is trying (last I heard it passed the house, but was still working through the senate) to stop this, by making it illegal to place this information on their drivers licenses. Unfortunately Montana doesn't have the population to make everyone care when their people can't fly or take a train anywhere.
I wish my state would do this.
Plastic cards? Seems far more practical to just implant the chip in the neck or something, no chance of losing it that way (well, not without you knowing it). They do it with our beloved canine pets and it seems to work well enough.
Mens et Manus
I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I bet very, very soon, the French will go on strike to protest this! Oh wait, when they strike, they usually don't really protest anything, but use it as an excuse to party. Maybe they'll use this card as an excuse to have a strike...
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
I always thought that good security, at least in terms of authentication, was based on something you have, and something you know. I have always taken the "something you have part" to be a soemthing independantly verifiable.
With biometric information on an ID, I have always taken that to mean that something can read the information uses it to verify me. I don't find that so secure, like a signature on the back of a credit card, it only verifies that I am telling you what I am telling you.
Someone could, possibly, have a fake ID card with his picture and biometric information, but a different name. In this case, the card holder is verified by the information he provides.
What is the point?
Very nice article, thanks for the link.
Sorry, just came over from Fark.
It is as if the collective poisons festering below the surface need to be vomited up, much like what happened in Nazi Germany. What else will motivate people to look at the pervasive anger, hatred, blind ignorance and scapegoating in the world?
ID or no ID, I don't see a solution to the new Visigoths and Vandals sacking Rome. We have become to comfortable, too indulgent, and too removed from the essentials of life and essential values.
Yeah, I know that a concept of "rights" is becoming a pretty strange notion in the USA nowadays. Or that thinking for oneself is a baaad thing.
But basically all you're saying there is that France does still treat people as humans, not like a bunch of terrorists until proven innocent. E.g., yes, there was a demonstration. It may be surprising to you, but demonstrations _are_ a legal thing in a democracy.
Was _everyone_ in the demonstration an illegal immigrant? No, seriously? How do you know that there aren't also a bunch of french citizens in there?
(Believe it or not every single country has the current USA-style "immigrant = terrorist" scare, or even the same kind of nationalism. The french kind of nationalism for example is more about language and culture, than about being born there. So there could have been quite a bunch of people born in france who are sympathetic, or at least not hostile, to people whose only fault is not being born there.)
So what do you propose that the police should do? Arrest everyone and keep them in custody several days until they can check them all? Break a legal protest on the excuse that some people in that protest might be illegal immigrants?
Yeah, that excuse will soo come in handy next time when people protest something. Give that idea to Bush while you're at it: I'm sure he'll love doing that to the next anti-war demonstration. Hey, there _could_ be illegal Mexican immigrants or some wanted terrorists in that demonstration. Must make sure.
If you really believe that burying democracy alive is the right way to gain some vague promise of safety, you're so mistaken it's not even funny.
Or how about the common sense of being tactful there? You propose, what? That the police clashes with an already agitated group of demonstrators, to show them who's boss? Yeah, way to go to turn a peaceful demonstration into a riot.
So you're telling me, what? That unlike you, someone in the French police actually had a brain?
Briefly: put down the crack pipe, join a 12 step program, or see a competent surgeon about having your head removed from your ass.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
this should be a move from french vendors of smart cards, they don't sell as many samrt cards as they think mostly due the lot of inconveniences behind the technology like prone to fail readers and chip hacking, so they must have bribed French officials to push the use of a dead technology. Seen that been there.
Tinfoil hats on. Has anyone noticed that in all public announcements about biometric passports there always is a stress on a fact, that biometric data will be kept on the passport? What's the point of keeping your fingerprints in peace of plastic that you present to some officer with a hand that has exactly the same fingerprints? I think the big secret here is that biometric data in the long run will be kept on the passport AND in some big government-and-who-knows-what-else controlled database. That's what's scary.
yep. just do it. We won't check your ID, neither any biometrics.
*squeak*
I mean it is clearly labelled "Carte Nationnale d'identite", did my mayor office cheat me and sell me a fake non existing national ID [naaaah] ? Or are you talking about things you do not know at all [most probable].
First and foremost THERE IS A NATIONAL ID. You are not forced to have one, but if you sign checks, I recommend you to have one or have a driving licence. Else you are SOL. Try giving a check with a birth certificate I wish you fun. Second you cannot be controlled at will, this is incorrect, but you CANNOT refuse to be controlled and this can happen anytime, anywhere if the procurator made an authorisation for this : " Contrôle d'identité de police judiciaire Le contrôle d'identité de police judiciaire est pratiqué sur instruction du procureur de la République pour la recherche d'infractions précises, dans des lieux et pour une période déterminés. " quote from a link from another poster.
So it is not at police DISCRETION but only on order of procurator in some specific cases.
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You all DO realize, the EU members are doing this because YOU MADE US do this?
Frigging hell, -my- governement (Dutch) has now mandatory ID, biometrics is planned for the next Passport version.
It is all done in name of "traveling to the US otherwise requires VISA and thats a bummer" and "Terrorism, you know", but in the meantimne it has been used against me for having my dog walk on grass without a leach, and to snap me up crossing the border INTO The Netherlands for a passport check, we supposedly do not have (Schengen Accord).
We increasingly live in a very controlled state.
*Rimshot* Thanks, I'll be at -1 all week
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
For Preventing ID theft. If you use a biometric ID card with your finger prints and a rentiner scan in order to claim benifits then it should reduce fradulent claims. Also it would make it much harder to flee the country on a fake passport (they realy aren't that pricey). I do not understand why people harp on about infringements of civil liberties, why does it matter if the card/government hold your finger prints/Iris Scan/DNA??? After all you are dropping your DNA all over the shot everyday so unless you live in a secret underground sealed system you are not loosing any 'rights'. I suspect it is the same group of numpties complaning about ID cards who also want to get rid of all the CCTV and stop the police searching websites for illigal content.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Hello all,
Just a little comment to point out that the last line of the article is dead wrong, in France we HAVE to carry an ID at all times and the police can ask for this at all times, if you don't have it with you then they CAN (meaning they don't HAVE to) ask you to follow them to the police station.
Of course the main difference with such a system in the states means that our police and law enforcement system is controlled by sensible people and not mindless robots so they know who and when to bring "suspects" to the police station.
I guess this is just another example of US "federalism" where each state is fighting not for the common good but just to keep it's little power and so they can issue THEIR drivers licence and have THEIR laws and so on, and it gives you funny elections where the opinion of the people of texas and california and new york are not counting because they are already "won" (or lost depends where you're standing) to this or that party while the main focus is Florida or Ohio or any other place, this system is a FANTASTIC opportunity for lobbyism.
As a final point I'd like to repeat the comment of french police when people show their driver's licence as ID "It's not a ID, it's a paper saying you are allowed to drive, it does not PROVE your ID", and in fact the name says it all "driver's licence" or "ID card", which one is the IDentification document ?
Sometimes centralism is good, for ID and for laws at least.
The UK government isn't going to bother with parliament anymore - they're going to bypass it: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/12/uk_passpor t_fingerprints/
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
It wouldn't, at least as long as the borders are open and nobody checks your ID for internal travel.
I just got back from a week in Paris. The "immigration" officer barely even glanced at my passport, and definitely did not scan the OCR strip like every other country I've ever visited. They didn't even stamp my entry until I handed them the passport a second time and requested one (I cut out the stamps and put them in my photo album once the passport expires).
This already comes to 32% of the adult male black population (and 8% of adult male whites) although females are not generally in the database.
Of course the government's dream is to tie this all in together (with supermarket loyalty cards chucked in, if you take a David Blunkett quip that way) to get files on each citizen that would make the Stasi envious (much easier to data-mine when its all digitised). If they could get face recognition technology to work with the dozens of cameras on each central london street they would be even happier...
If the card will be used in the absence of fingerprint or retina scanners that could verify the biometric data, what's the point of including the biometric data?
Biometrics are supposed to transform some physical characteristic of your body into a number that can be used to retrieve a database record. That number could also be printed on your ID card, so a biometric scanner would be able to verify that you were the owner of the card. But biometrics can't authenticate the rest of the card's contents, and they certainly can't provide a secure mapping between you and your database record in the absence of a scanner.
There is no good reason for including biometric data on ID cards - biometrics are an alternative to ID cards, superior because they can't be forged or stolen. A card with biometric data is a card with a false sense of security. Without a scanner you'll never know if the card is stolen; if you have a scanner you don't need the card. Either way, the card is useless. The only reason for including biometrics on an ID card is to justify the collection of biometric data from large numbers of people in order to construct a national database. (Or as the synchronised progress in the US, France and the UK suggests, an international database.)
The Tories may have avoided the issue in their manifesto, but Michael Howard is personally in favour of ID cards and tried to introduce them in 1995, while Ann Widdecombe voted for them in 2005.
ID + fingerprint = something you have + something you are
How is this better than 'fingerprint = something you are'? How does adding an insecure card to a (hopefully) secure biometric increase the security?
Put an expiration date in the card, and digitally sign it together with the fingerprint data.
Revoked IDs can be downloaded off-line. The average size of the list would be (lifetime of the card in years) * (numbers of revocations per year), i.e much smaller than the whole list of valid IDs. In an online system, how would you expect airport screeners to deal with telecom failures ? Keep everybody waiting in line ?
Of course we are discussing "the right way" here. Governments and vendors can still screw it up.
How is this better than 'fingerprint = something you are'
The more factors you check, the better (for security, not necessarily for human rights)
Something you are (biometry)
Something you have (badge, ID, smartcard)
Something you know (password)
an insecure card to a (hopefully) secure biometric
Cards do asymmetric cryptography.
Biometry is public-key cryptography (as in "public domain"). Identification, not authentication.
Everyone knows that the French government is a bunch of nazis.
... Fucking bunch of nazi pigs.
.. Apparently that means that the government has the libery to treat everyone equally as scum fraternising with terrorists.
Every time I travel to the god damned UK through France, I have to go through THREE passport checks in an area about 50 square yards large
"Liberté, Egalité & Fraternité"
If you're a minor your parents must be informed.
They can't hold you for more than 4 hours.
Ok, so it can be rather annoying, but in practice they just ask you to come to the commisariat the next day. Unless you're a young north african man of course.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I tried this like 15 years ago, when "morphing" was all the rage: morph mug shots of two not too dissimilar person.
The resulting picture looks like a legit photo ID to someone who doesn't know both persons.
Surely it doesn't matter if the "key" is public knowledge, as long as no-one can copy or forge it?
It seems to me like you need something far more secret than biometric data to keep your identity private. (In addition to a hash).
I find it really sad that recent US govt propaganda(tm) has somehow painted the French as a nation of cowards.
What is sadder still, is the fact that (like most compliant, media-owned Americans) you totally buy into it this shit, hook line and sinker!
In fact (sorry, I know 'facts' are rather inconvenient for you), in WW2 the ordinary French civilian population formed one of the most effective guerilla forces ever: the Free French Resistance.
The reason France was invaded and subjugated by Hitler's Germany was not due to a lack of bravery on the part of the French forces, but rather due to their out-of-date, out-of-touch WW1-thinking commanders and politicians.
I wonder how brave the average US citizen would be in the situation the French faced in the early 1940s.
From what I've seen (and I have), most Americans behave like a bunch of frightened rabbits if they have to actually confront an enemy face-to-face rather than pushing a mega-death button from a safe distance.
Flashing your pinky is definitely more convenient than spelling your name or getting a card out of your wallet. But that's identification, not authentication.
And are you certain that nobody can pick up your hair from the pavement, clone it in their kitchen, then spray it at a crime scene ?
In related news, hand-transplant surgeons, fearing that their profession might become illegal under the proposed biometric ID plan, are protesting worldwide.
I'm not saying that biometrics are perfect, but the point is that regardless of how fallible the biometrics are, cards don't increase security if they're validated by the same biometrics. If you can forge a fingerprint, a digital signature that authenticates the fingerprint you just forged doesn't fix anything. If the biometrics are broken, the card is also broken. If the biometrics aren't broken, the card is redundant.
There are two independent things you can do with a digital ID card.
It doesn't matter if the card can be copied, as long as signatures cannot be forged.
As you point out, authentication is still based on biometry only. But as I explained, this avoids the requirement for an online database.
Presumably such cards cannot be copied too easily. And you can forge a card containing whatever keypair you want, but you can't forge the certificate unless you know the private key of the government.
The system still needs to deal with attacks where the scanner only sees a dummy card which somehow relays the challenge-response to a legitimate card plugged in some trojaned PC.
The combination of both techniques should be pretty effective if you ask George Orwell.
Oh, my. You were against the overthrow of the Taliban? You are a loon.
You should see a movie. It is called "Osama." It will be an education for you. It showcases what life was like for women in Afganistan before the U.S. led invasion freed them.
You know, one of my friends was in Afganistan, protesting about Taliban rule, for a couple of years before the suicide bombers attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade centre. She knew how bad life there was for women: she experienced it first hand.
She was of the opinion that the Taliban were religious fanatics, but the faction that the US supported were, in her opinion, even worse for the people of Afganistan. That's a strong indictment, coming from someone who's seen what life there is really like.
Me, I don't know all the facts, but I trust my friend's judgement more than I trust the mass media. She's a mathematican, well trained in formal logic, and a humanitarian who biked for miles trying kick-start a self-sustained development project in Africa. She's a good person, and slow to condemn anyone without grounds. When she voices concerns about the ethics of a group, I listen more carefully than when the average media pundit does the same. I can trust her not to sell out her ethics for good aproval ratings.
Interestingly, when the invasion of Afganistan began, the mass media initially raised a few question like: "Are these really good allies?", transitioned quickly to "Are they useful or even necessary?", and then quickly ran with the ever popular "Support our troops!". The deep questions got skimmed over, and the banners flew high, in patriotic fervour.
In all the fuss, I wonder what happened to careful and critical analysis of just what we're doing, and why. It seems to have been the first casualty of this war.
--
AC
Can the biometric data be hashed and the hash used for verification instead?
The company that I recently worked for makes and sells a fingerprinting system (aka AFIS or Automatic Fingerprint Identification System). It takes input from a fingerprint reader, which is really a special black and white digital camera with a fixed focus, something like this. The software identifies the X,Y coordinates of the specific areas of the fingerprint image, such bifurcations, ridges, furrows and stuff (maybe a fingerprinting expert can help me out here on the details).
The software creates a hash of the two dimensional relationship between the various X,Y coordinates. Here in Hungary if more than 19 of these points match up with a fingerprint taken at a crime scene, you go to jail. That is enough evidence for conviction. The software takes the coordinates of dozens of these areas of interest and can match even partial fingerprints (and palm prints) very quickly, since the search involves comparing short text strings, rather than multi-kilobyte images. As the software analyses spatial relationship rather than image data, it does not matter whether the partial fingerprint is rotated - the relationship between the points stays the same.
FYI, my right thumb's hash was 186 bytes long - that's 1488 bits. 2^1488 is 8.56 x 10^447 (if my maths is correct). My fingerprint is unique indeed. BTW, the 186 bytes is just raw data, no header information.
I wish I still had access to that marketing document where I had a screenshot of my right thumb's hash, I could paste the ASCII text in here for you all to see (hey, the US Government already has my fingerprint on file since the last time I visited Dulles International Airport, why shouldn't you?). Besides, without the actual fingerprinting code, the hash wouldn't do you much good, now, would it.
No, I'm not selling $FINGERPRINTING_SOFTWARE anymore, so don't ask.
To answer the parent's question, the process used in our case is strictly one way. A new fingerprint is hashed and then compared to stored hash(es). There is no way to reconstruct the orginal fingerprint, because all the image data has been thrown away and frankly, it's better this way. Fancy graphics look nice in the mooovies, but are a real pain when it comes to finding a match out of a population of a million fingerprints (and that's a small subset of the national population, since the majority of people have ten fingers.)
Alas, I don't know how the competition does it - probably something similar, though. Yeah, I know, "in post-Communist Hungary, the print fingers YOU!", etc.
Biometrics can't be measured consistently. This makes them useless for identification, as there will be unacceptable levels of false positives or false negatives (or both) depending on the matching tolerance.
Biometrics are supposed to authenticate the holder, not the card. The information on an identity card should be digitally signed by the issuing authority, and the signature should not be too difficult to verify (though revokation lists may pose a problem, depending on how large they grow).
Not only are you overrating the reliability of biometrics, but you seem to be assuming that every identity checkpoint will have online access to the identity database. I don't think that's a sensible design. Although I wouldn't be surprised if the control freaks and IT cowboys behind the government ID card schemes would try to do things this way.
The first's the model the French governement is going for. The UK government on the other hand (unless we stop it: NO2ID) will be trying the Big Brother Central approach. It says it wants online comparison--and an audit trail--for everything in life down to buying a mobile phone or renting a room. Quite how all those scanners and lines are supposed to be kept secure it doesn't seem to have given much thought to. But (as far as anyone can guess given that it's all secret, and the draft legislation empowers any future Home Secretary to make the law up as he goes along) it looks like the cost and liability will be made into someone else's cost and someone else's liability.