Slashdot Mirror
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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
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.
Exactly how would a National ID Card make people safer?
Other than that, I agree - extremism breeds extremism, and violence should only be used as a very last resort. However, one negotiates from a position of weakness if one refuses to use even the treat of violence as a bargaining tactic.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
The terrorists, being law-abiding people, would carefully register their legal occupation as "terrorist", and thus it would be easy to find them in our national databases.
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
That's not clear, but that's the history of ID cards and other photo based documents.
The photo based driver's license was justified as an all purpose ID card, but my research has indicated that no one could justify a strong need for it...nor was there driver's licensing fraud that would be eliminated with the photo. I hypothesize that the photo driver's license was essentially a way of photograph companies to sell expensive instant color photographic equipment. (Those interested in my reasoning can ask.)
The photo based passport really became vogue during World War I, when european nations were afraid that spies would be crossing border. (Hello! Counterfeiting? I'm glad people were as dumb then as they are now.) With new regulations US citizens won't be able to return to the US after 2006 without a passport, even in the western hemisphere. US Citizens were not required to travel with a passport until 1941 (and during World War I and the Civil War.) For reasons not clear to me, the restriction was only rolled back to hemisphere travel after World War II.
So the lesson is, mandatory identification is either vendor driven, or war/terrorism/fear driven, or, as is most likely the case, both.
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.
Interesting how you phrase deporting criminals (they are ILLEGAL aliens) with, "harass minorities".
No keyboard detected. Press any key to continue.
Such systems do not help with security. Many of the 9-11 terrorists had valid ids. When you enforce such restrictions, you do nothing but limit the law abiding. Carrying an ID will not prevent you from committing any crime, but it will make some poor soul who forgets their ID once out of a hundred times a criminal. A biometric ID will not jump out of your pocket to stop you from shooting a gun, cannot stop you from robbing someone, cannot do anything. All it can do is inconvience the law abiding. In the end, people get more fed up with the government, leading to MORE violence, not less.
SAILING MISHAP
deport illegal Muslim immigrants from the Maghreb
if its going to be used to harass minorities.
Make your mind buddy, if it's used to deport illegal immigrants, it's not for harassing minorities that are legally in France. Sure racisme has increased over the years here, but I fail to hear other French agreeing to this new ID card, and I even more fail to hear them thinking it's good for harassing Arabs.
I think it's more a new way to take our money, since many people (myself included) tend to not renew any ID card or passport, since driver licence is enough and doesn't need to be renewed.
We have one of the most bloated and inefficient bureaucracy in Europe, and they tend to always look for new ways to get even bigger.
I really don't think racism has anything to do with that, just plain old stupid bureaucracy wanting to be even bigger, even stupidier, and even more efficient. Just like it always has.
And it has the added bonus of justifying recent government employes wages increase.
To quote Clemenceau : "In France we plant taxes and we grow fonctionnaires (state employes)".
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
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.
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.
It is my understanding that all of the 9/11 terrorists had valid U.S. IDs (drivers licenses, mostly) and/or valid passports which had been scrutinized at the border. These IDs were all in their own names (though perhaps not in the name under which they were wanted). So far as I know, no one has suggested that they had obtained these IDs fraudulently: they all could have gotten the new biometric IDs that so many seem to want.
We knew who they were, and some of them were on ``wanted'' or ``watch'' lists under the names on their legitimate IDs, the IDs which they used to board their planes. Identity was never a factor in the 9/11 hijackings. Therefore, obviously, what we need to make sure it never happens again is a new, improved National ID system which will further tighten the government's control over us. Yes, indeed. It kept the Jews safe in the 1930s, after all. We'll try not to think about what happened to them in the 1940s.
All this isn't to quibble with what the parent post said, but to reinforce it.
See what I've been reading.
With pleasure.
Interesting fact: it is indisputed that it is easier to identify people with a black and white photograph than with a color photograph. As an actor, my headshots are in black and white, as is the case with most actor's headshots for NY based actors...the features of the face pop up better in black and white than in color. If a person presents a passport to an immigration official, and the official isn't sure if it's the same person or not, often they will photograph the person in black and white, and then compare the black and white photograph with the color photograph. Black and white photographs are superior to color when it comes to identification. They would make it much harder for people to use others' ID cards.
Yet, every state and province (except for Alberta) issues a driver's license with a color photograph. (And Alberta used to, their black and white photograph is based on the technology they use to create their license, not based on a preference for black and white.) In fact, if you read state legislative codes, it will say, in nearly all instances, that there shall be a "color photograph" on the driver's license. Historically, in all the states I have known and read the legal code, the word color was there from the very beginning (Ohio for instance had it in 1967 when they codified the mandatory photo license law.) The only exceptions are Colorado and California, who issued black and white photo licenses from about 1957-1965, at which point they switched to color and codified the color requirement (those two states admittedly blow my argument a bit.)
At any rate, that all seems too purposeful to me, which brings me to the timing issue. A lot of states started codifying photo licenses in the late 1960s. Polaroid developed color instant photography in 1964...and was the leader for at least 10 years in photo ID card issuance systems (in fact, it was their only profitable business from the 1990s on. It was spun-off when Polaroid entered bankruptcy.) As a cultural thing, we were crazy about photography in the 1960s...I've seen newspaper advertisements for general stores where a pack of flash bulbs was just as expensive as men's shoes. But color instant photography was fantastically expensive, and out of reach for the average person...so I hypothesize that Polaroid was searching for something to do with the technology other than sell it to people directly. (I've got an advertisement in my possession of a local Columbus bank issuing credit cards with polaroid photos from 1967...offering it as a good ID for cashing checks. They did go out of their way to mention that it was with Polaroid photos.)
Perhaps even more key than the color requirement and the timing is the fact that every state has always and still does...takes the picture for you. Compare to a passport--you bring your photo in, and it's incorporated into the document. In fact, there are countries in which you bring your photo for your license or ID card...countries which have had photos on their licenses or ID cards for much longer than in the US. Remember this from a historical perspective...it would have been cheaper for a person to bring any old photograph of themself, than to pay the state to take a color instant photo for them. But clearly if that were to occur that would shortchange the revenue stream for the company wanting a very lucrative photo ID contract. It's essential that the state takes the photograph.
So if you look at it in that context...you could say that vendor driven documents are those in which the photo is taken of you (many ID cards, driver's licenses, et cetera.) Documents that were created for reasons other than vendor lobbying you take the photo yourself (passports.)
With more time and research, I can probably string together more arguments. One thing I've been wanting is Polaroid annual reports from the mid to late 1960s.
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.