Russia will implement a universal ID card in 2012.

IIRC, Bush flirted with the idea of national ID cards a few years ago. There are pros and cons, of course, but I don't think it's a horrible idea.

Not to start down a tinfoil path, but Homeland Security would be one step closer to having immediate access to how fast I drive from my EZpass, what books I get from the library, and what ailments I might seek medical attention for, what my travel patterns are, if I vote or not, etc, etc. Because they have shown so much respect for law abiding taxpayers in the last decade that they can be trusted to keep their hands off that data.

even without my shiny new hats, I'm sure we'd fuck it up in practice, and any national ID would be in addition to state ID (at a minimum). We've already got several ID's that are each used about 80% of the time - SSN, state ID/drivers license, and passports. Maybe more. Then you have all the private/semi-public ID cards, numbers, accounts, and memberships.

Opty said:

IIRC, Bush flirted with the idea of national ID cards a few years ago. There are pros and cons, of course, but I don't think it's a horrible idea.

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It is a completely horrible idea, and this became obvious the further we went down this path in the UK.

First of all, UK govt. IT projects are characterised by EPIC FAIL. They don't work, they come in ten years late and ten times over budget.

Second, the govt. appears incapable of keeping their databases secure. Last year I believe the govt. lost the personal records of every single child benefit claimant in the country. They also talked about opening up the National Identity Register to all sorts of people, from nosy civil servants to private companies.

Third, the database needs to be maintained. You have to register hundreds of thousands of new entrants every year and make sure it is continually updated to reflect changes in status - name changes, marriages, deaths, changes of address, even stuff like radical changes of appearance. Charlie Stross is good on this (no working permalink unfortunately but scroll down to "on the unworkability...") - he reckons we would need to process one person every 72 seconds. Good luck!

I mean, there are all sorts of other issues around this - civil liberties spring to mind - but the plain fact is that we were never going to be able to even set this kind of system up, let alone run it with any degree of smoothness.

I am still waiting for the day when I walk up to my ATM and hear a female-sounding computer voice say to me:



"Please place your right hand on the palm plate, and rest your forehead against the optical scanner............... Thank you."




.

Next step: A universal ID card App for the iPhone.

Your papers? Vhere are your papers?

Opty said:

IIRC, Bush flirted with the idea of national ID cards a few years ago. There are pros and cons, of course, but I don't think it's a horrible idea.

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It was tried, but that nasty word "nullification" has to be mentioned to explain what happened. Those who don't care to hear the word mentioned in polite company should leave the room.

Here's a short summary from the 10th Amendment Center:

Led by Maine in early 2007, 25 states over the past 2 years have passed resolutions and binding laws denouncing and refusing the implement the Bush-era law which many expressed concerned about privacy, funding and more. While the law is still on the books in D.C., its implementation has been “delayed” numerous times in response to this massive state resistance, and in practice, is virtually null and void.

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Twenty-five states have told FedGov to stuff it. Instead of backing down, they keep extending the deadline for states to comply. Instead of complying, more and more states join the "ignore it and it will go away" bandwagon.

I find it telling beyond words that Real ID and the dozen or so other nullification actions going on between the states and FedGov almost never makes it onto the radar of the "popular press" -- with the exception of several states totally ignoring FedGov's stance on medical marijuana, which of course is never referred to as nullification.

AFAIK, FedGov has not yet threatened to invade non-compliant states -- yet.




Oh -- and yes, it's a horrible idea. See the other responses that have explained why, in detail.

A cat was summoned to jury service in Massachusetts, due in court on March 23. There is no doubt in my mind that we'd screw it up here, and that the Russians will screw it up in 2012.

"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." -Oscar Wilde

If you travel by air or want a bank account in the US you need one of a small number of accepted IDs anyway.

Torgo said:

It is a completely horrible idea, and this became obvious the further we went down this path in the UK.

First of all, UK govt. IT projects are characterised by EPIC FAIL. They don't work, they come in ten years late and ten times over budget.

Second, the govt. appears incapable of keeping their databases secure. Last year I believe the govt. lost the personal records of every single child benefit claimant in the country. They also talked about opening up the National Identity Register to all sorts of people, from nosy civil servants to private companies.

Third, the database needs to be maintained. You have to register hundreds of thousands of new entrants every year and make sure it is continually updated to reflect changes in status - name changes, marriages, deaths, changes of address, even stuff like radical changes of appearance. Charlie Stross is good on this (no working permalink unfortunately but scroll down to "on the unworkability...") - he reckons we would need to process one person every 72 seconds. Good luck!

I mean, there are all sorts of other issues around this - civil liberties spring to mind - but the plain fact is that we were never going to be able to even set this kind of system up, let alone run it with any degree of smoothness.

Click to expand...

None of that convinces me that the idea of a national ID card that would combine the other forms of ID we all currently have into one ID (as well as make access to medical records much faster and more convenient) is a bad idea.

It does tell me that the execution of the idea can be and has been FUBAR in the past and the potential for the ID card system to be abused exists.

However, all of that deals with execution and implementation, not the pure idea/concept itself.

Opty said:

However, all of that deals with execution and implementation, not the pure idea/concept itself.

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Good point. FedGov has an excellent record of performance to task, and a pristine record protecting the rights of its citizens, so what have we got to worry about?

I can't wait to get mine.

I hope I live long enough.

Don said:

Good point. FedGov has an excellent record of performance to task, and a pristine record protecting the rights of its citizens, so what have we got to worry about?

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Again, that only speaks to execution. I'm not saying I'm for it being passed because I don't trust that there would be a reliable, trustworthy system set up to handle the ID card. I'm just saying that the pie-in-the-sky, perfect world scenario idea of it isn't horrible.

Torgo said:

...
Third, the database needs to be maintained. You have to register hundreds of thousands of new entrants every year and make sure it is continually updated to reflect changes in status - name changes, marriages, deaths, changes of address, even stuff like radical changes of appearance. Charlie Stross is good on this (no working permalink unfortunately but scroll down to "on the unworkability...") - he reckons we would need to process one person every 72 seconds. Good luck!

Click to expand...

Adding an entry every 72 seconds is nothing. It's the thousands of accesses per second, each of one of hundreds of millions of records that makes it an "interesting" system. But there's plenty of experience with this in private industry. For example, there's a certain social media site (I refuse to utter the F word) that has 500 million members, and all I hear about is the word "friend" being used as a verb and how everyone writes on one anothers' walls. If there were significant problems or outages I have no doubt I'd read about it on the front page of http://cnn.com.

Many years ago I overheard (thus this could be complete BS) about transactions of some credit card company from an IT person who worked there at the time. I forget how many transactions per second they said they handled, whether it was hundreds, thousands, or what. But he did say that the load was so heavy at some times during the previous Christmas Holiday shopping season that for several hours, to insure reasonable throughput, they had the thing approve ALL transactions.

Now if that were an Important Government Database Of Citizens (even if handled by a private company, instead of company policy it would be controlled according to myriad government rules saying what it could and could not do) and the system were in danger of being bogged down with too many requests, I wonder what would happen: Approve all "transactions?" Deny all? Or just bog down and take minutes or hours per transaction?

Opty said:

However, all of that deals with execution and implementation, not the pure idea/concept itself.

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Communism's great, too!

Torgo said:

Communism's great, too!

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Comparing the idealism of the imposition of a communist state to the idea that you might be able to run a national ID scheme sensibly doesn't make a lot of sense. Would you care to add something?

Opty said:

However, all of that deals with execution and implementation, not the pure idea/concept itself.

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Isn't that how most evil things begin - with a good idea? Anything good can be used for evil. Just sayin'.

benbradley said:

Now if that were an Important Government Database Of Citizens (even if handled by a private company, instead of company policy it would be controlled according to myriad government rules saying what it could and could not do) and the system were in danger of being bogged down with too many requests, I wonder what would happen: Approve all "transactions?" Deny all? Or just bog down and take minutes or hours per transaction?

Click to expand...

Interesting. But definitely something to think about.

muddy_shoes said:

Comparing the idealism of the imposition of a communist state to the idea that you might be able to run a national ID scheme sensibly doesn't make a lot of sense. Would you care to add something?

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OK:

1. What possible benefit does a national ID scheme offer? Our government spent about 8 years trying to come up with something. Every rationale was shot down.
2. Indeed, the pilot scheme in Manchester had a laughably low uptake because people couldn't see the point of having one. We have whole wallets full of credentials already.
3. The cost and logistical implications are extremely daunting. There needs to be some sort of compelling reason to do this, because it will cost billions to implement.
4. Do you really want a single credential and a single database? If the security is broken, and it inevitably will be, all your identity eggs are in one basket.