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REAL ID SCHEME OPPOSED BY SENATE BIOMETRIC NATIONAL ID CARDS, WHICH SOME FEAR COULD LEAD TO 'CULTURE OF ACCESS', SAID UNRELIABLE, THREAT TO LIBERTIES 30 July 2007 The Democratic leadership in the Senate has garnered support to refuse funding for promoting a Republican-backed scheme whereby all US citizens would be forced to carry "national ID cards" by 2013. The vote cut a funding amendment to the Homeland Security appropriations bill; an amendment added by staunch opponent Max Baucus (D-MT) bars states from using any funding from the Homeland Security bill to enact the national ID card plan. When Britain's then PM Tony Blair tried to force a 13-point biometric ID card, computer experts, civil rights groups, legal experts and even Microsoft, formally complained it would create a massive black market in identity theft, and the possibility of life-long persecution of innocent people whose biometric ID had been stolen. The technology has to date never proven consistent or reliable enough to use on a massive scale for public services. And many fear that both the British plan and the US plan could lead to the state having too much power over what people can do or what locations access in their everyday lives. The bill will leave some funding for Real ID, which is after all, a federal initiative enacted in law by the previous Congress. According to ZDNet News, "The votes leave just $50 million in additional Real ID grants for states in the the final bill, which passed by an 89-4 vote late Thursday and is now headed to the president's desk. President Bush has previously vowed to veto the entire measure, but it was not immediately clear whether that was still the case." Earlier this year, a major bill on immigration reform was defeated in part because of widespread disagreement over requirements to expand the use of electronic ID cards, and members of both houses have presented legislation that would repeal the Real ID Act of 2005 entirely. Civil liberties groups and opponents in Congress are pushing for a different strategy which would allow for security and anti-counterfeiting enhancements while privileging card-holder privacy and ensuring constitutional liberties are not eroded.
RELATED STORIES: On 1 November, the Financial Times reported Tony Blair's government would push ahead, despite grave civil liberties and identity-theft and black-market fraud concerns. According to the government the biometric features will turn the ID cards into "the single gateway into a whole range of services that people need in their everyday lives". It is not hard to see how such a declaration could indicate indifference to civil liberties. [Full Story] BIOMETRIC DEVICES MAY UNDERMINE INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY In the wake of major terrorist attacks against densely populated civilian centers in several countries across Europe, Asia and America, governments and private industry are looking at ways of using biometric scanning technology to determine who should or should not have access to certain locations and services. The technology is complicated and highly advanced, but unproven, and potentially highly flawed. [Full Story] UK NATIONAL ID CARD SCHEME: FARCE OR BIG BROTHER? The British government's plan to implement a national biometric identification system by 2007 is seen by some as a farcical if dubious exercise in futility. For others, it heralds the final phase in technocracy's closing its grip on the open society. The plan as currently envisioned will use 13 biometric features, registering, measuring and comparing physical traits of individual citizens, to match human beings to their ID cards, thus, in theory, proving their identity. By the year 2013, Parliament is required to vote on whether all people in the UK should be required to carry some form of biometric identification. [Full Story] |
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