U.S. considers universal registration proposal

U.S. Considers universal registration proposal

Dec. 18, 2001 - After the Sept. 11 attacks, several House and Senate lawmakers again began to consider instituting a national identification card, or adding a biometric identifier such as a fingerprint to all Social Security cards. Larry Ellison, the founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation quickly proposed a national ID card to help fight terrorism. Ellison, in a Wall Street journal op-ed piece, contended that "a national database combined with biometrics, thumb prints, hand prints, iris scans or other new technology could detect false identities." Ellison has also indicated that his company could develop the software necessary to do this, but the Bush administration has stated that it will not support a national ID system to combat terrorism.

However, this last week Pascal Smet, the head of Belgium's independent asylum review board, brought the discussion to a new level when he proposed a universal identification system at a United Nations meeting Thursday. Under the terms of his proposal, every person in the world would be fingerprinted and registered as a means of immigration control. Smet said that the European Union had already been considering a registration of all its citizens, using biometric identifiers such as retinal scans or fingerprints.

"It's a basic rule of management that if you want to manage something, you measure it," he said. "It's the same with human beings and migration…But instead of measuring it, you have to register them."

Australian Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock communicated that he thought a "universal identification system would be taking it too far."

Already, though, "smart" cards and the use of biometrics are gaining in popularity. According to industry analyst, "Frost and Sullivan," there are about three billion cards worldwide. Drexler Technology of Mountain View, California, located in the Silicon Valley, is currently providing 10 million permanent Mexican residents and border commuters in the United States and Italy with smart cards. The Italian government wants all of its 57 million citizens to carry the new national ID cards within five years.

The Pentagon also recently began arming four million troops and civilian employees with smart ID cards that will allow them to purchase food, gain access to secure facilities, open locked doors, get cash and check out weapons and other military hardware and supplies. These cards are about the size of a credit card and will replace the standard green ID cards now used by defense employees. The card includes a bar code that is similar to the scan codes found on grocery products, magnet stripe to store personal information and a circuit chip. This card would also allow the holders to access secure Defense Web sites, log into their computers and digitally encrypt and sign their emails. The smart cards cost the government about $8 each.

The stated intention for the registration and databasing of citizens is always to fight some sort of crime - be it fraud, illegal immigration, handgun violence, drug trade, airplane hijacking. However, this method gives us cause for concern. Registering law-abiding citizens does little to fight crime, but does increasingly restrict the civil liberties of those citizens who are already obeying the law. Those who can falsify information, forge, program, and scan will be able to get around the restrictions imposed by the cards. In the effort to fight crime, or in the name of convenience, citizens are made vulnerable to those who have access to those databases - whether innocent clerks, mischievous hackers, or potential governmental tyrants.