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Are National ID Cards a Good Idea?
Dracophile asks: "The Sydney Morning Herald recently ran a front-page article about a 'smart card' to access government services and that it would double as a national identity card. The article points out that the current Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, who fiercely opposed from opposition the Australia Card idea in 1985, is now a supporter. The article goes on to say that about 100 nations have some form of ID card. Is your country one of them? What concerns were raised? How were they addressed? Have welfare fraud and other identity-related crimes decreased? Have National ID cards improved or deteriorated conditions where you live?"
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0404.html#1
I'd throw in my opinion, but I'll defer to Bruce.
Worst Sig Ever
...I personally don't see what's the big fuss about. Back in Slovakia, we've got national ID cards (called "Citizen's Card"). We use them only for identification; the same way I use a driver's license in the US. the ID cards have five pieces of information: Your picture, name, address, date of birth, and a unique ID number. This makes it no different from a US driver's license, with the small distinction that with the exception of writing personal checks you don't give out your DL number. Instead, you use the social security number as your identifier.
Of course, I don't dispute that ID cards can be abused, for example by having them carry much more of your personal information. However, that's not the ID card's fault; it's the responsibility of the government to determine which information will be available through an ID card.
Let me summarize:
- Watch out for Australian Gestapo.
- That's a bad analogy.
- No, it's a good analogy.
- Here's a link to a German film about police powers.
- We already have drivers' licenses; how are national ID's any different?
- Here's a humorous comment.
- It's not compulsory per se; you don't have to get the ID card. You just can't access government benefits without one... putting a *very* big carrot in front of Australians.
Here is a recent case law from Nevada. Guess you loose. Yes they can force you to give them your drivers license. Further Drivers licences are often used for things that have nothing to do with driving. Bar and night clubs use them, Movie theaters, stores require them for other age restricted goods aka tobacco and pr0n.
I have never lived in a country without a national ID card so I'm not sure what are the advantages of having or not having such a document. In Spain, we've had national ID cards since before I was born, and I have one, of course.
My general feeling is that they're a good idea if used right, which I think is the situation now. National ID cards are used mostly in situations when they want to establish exactly who is going to participate in a given event. The national ID number is a private data, like your phone number. Nobody knows which is your national ID number and when you're requested to give it, you have the impression you are going to establish a formal and serious relationship/business with something or somebody.
For example, it's usually requested in contracts. Let's suppose you buy a house. Your contract says the amount you are going to pay, the conditions, etc, *and* your national ID. So it is *you* who is buying the house and not somebody else. And the house will belong to *you* and not somebody else. And it's also requested for the company to have a similar number that will be in the contract. So it's *that* company. But, for example, you are not requested to give your national ID when you buy a PC.
I was requested to give my national ID number (and show the card, of course) when I started my studies at the university. While not a common practice, some teachers requested the cards at the final exams. They have a list of people who has paid to assist their classes and go to the exams, they bring that list to the exam and ask people for the card to enter the exam room. That way, they make sure it's really *you* who is doing the exam and not somebody else in your behalf.
Another usual situation in which you are requested to show your ID card is when paying with a credit card at some supermarket or shop in general. Instead of checking that your signature matches the one in the credit card, which is a loose relationship IMHO (and easy to fake), you show your credit card and your ID card. The shop assistant holds both cards in their hands and checks that you are the one in the ID card by looking at the picture and that the name in the credit card matches the name in the ID card. This way you couldn't use a stolen card unless your name and the owner's name match. Note that in Spain you have one name and two surnames (one from each parent), making coincidences slightly more unusual.
And a final word about the cards themselves: they have the typical security measures used for bills and other "official" documents (probably on a higher paranoid level I'd say). Of course, they can be faked, like everything, but it's not easy at all for a common individual to do it. Currently it's made of plastic, with special ink and your picture, of course, it not attached to it, it's printed on the card itself.
Perhaps. But if you *are* carrying a form of identification, a police officer in the US is allowed to ask you to present it with no justification whatsoever, and failing to do so is a jailable offense.
Can you provide support for this statement? Even in the case cited above, a person can only be jailed if there is "and reasonable suspicion--though not probable cause" that the person has committed a crime. This makes sense since I person who refuses to identify themselves cannot be located for future questioning if needed. I am unaware of any law requiring a person to identify themselves to an officer "with no justification whatsoever".
From article linked above:
# Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality of Arrest for Refusal to Identify. In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court has narrowly upheld a Nevada law allowing law enforcement to arrest an individual when he refuses to identify himself, and reasonable suspicion--though not probable cause--exists that he has committed a crime. (June 21, 2004)
Atanamis
Why do you think this is a Republican issue? There are plenty of statist scum in both parties who support internal passports.
All this national-ID shit started under Clinton, and Hillary still wants a national ID card encoded with biometric data.
You owe freedom-loving Republicans like Rep. Ron Paul an apology.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Income tax was a temporary measure to fund World War 1.
Well, I got to here, and I almost stopped reading. Sorry, but the income tax in the U.S. has been around since the Civil War, which was more than 50 years before WWI. There were some issues with constitutionality for a while there, but the 16th Amendment, which brought about the income tax for good, was ratified in February 1913, a year and a half before WWI started, and four years before the U.S. got involved. Wikipedia.
But I decided to keep reading, until I got to:
The 65 mph speed limit began as another temporary measure to reduce gas consumption during an oil embargo by Middle East producers in the 1970's.
(a) That was 55mph, not 65.
(b) It was kept around for safety, because there was a drop in highway deaths after the limit was lowered. Correlation not causation, perhaps, but that was the rationale.
Didn't read the rest of your post, since I figured with such glaring mistakes in the first three sentences the rest of it would be pretty suspect.
Plus (if you're talking about Ontario) we're not allowed to use our health card as identification, or even show it to anyone who isn't a health care provider.
Sent from my computer.
Now GET OFF MY LAWN!
As I've mentioned R.Gs (Registro Geral), are NOT guaranteed to be unique. They are issued regionally. Most people don't know that.
I only learned that when I had to deal with patients identification due to software requirements not long ago.
The new eletronic R.G. are unique digital signatures but these are expensive (you have to pay yearly fees to the certification authority, something like Verisign) and still very very far from wide adoption.
Anyway I think we are talking about ubiquous free unique national IDs.
In Brazil we have national driver's licenses and CPFs (our tax id document). They are unique, they are national, they are almost free but they are not ubiquous because they are not mandatory documents.
We do not have a national ID at least as defined here.
Best regards,
mau.
"Think globally, act locally".