July 10, 2010, marks EFF’s 20th anniversary! To thank you for your support over these two decades, please enjoy this new animation created especially for us by celebrated cartoonist and free culture activist Nina Paley. This short cartoon highlights some of the reasons why EFF is here.
Biometric ID cards are arising in many nations around the world despite the protests of many. In the past two months there have been numerous stories published concerning various governments pushing biometric ID as the way to protect people from terrorism. What it really does is create a nice database on the population of a country, making everyone identifiable and eroding privacy.
The Ugandan ID is set to include data on tribe, clan, village, and parish, as well as information on spouses. There will also be a provision of up to four wives plus children.
Turkey introduced biometric IDs that will have a digital picture, but no fingerprints on June 1st. Regular passports will be red, while diplomatic passports will be black.
Mozambique introduced their biometric ID in April after a short delay. The Belgian firm, Semlex, fixed the problems that they created with spelling errors and the prevention of Mozambican names from fitting on new biometric passports. The Belgians, however, can’t seem to hang on to their own ID cards, with more than 200,000 people losing them last year. Most of these were in the 18-25 year old range. Girls were particularly susceptible since they left their ID in open handbags
Zambia has introduced a multipurpose electronic national registration card. Kenya is set to employ a similar measure. The cards can be used for voting, accessing banking services, and as driver’s licenses.
Algerian passports now require women to remove their hijab for photographic purposes. A full face is required to meet international standards on their new biometric passports and many men are livid at this decision. The government has said they will not back down on the decision. Many believe it is the politicians objecting to this and not the women themselves.
While not quite a national ID card just yet, voters in Nepal are now required to have photographs and fingerprints taken, which will then be placed on a card with a unique ID number. The information will be stored on a national civil registration list.
Russia is fingerprinting, photographing, and licensing migrant laborers. If you are a highly skilled laborer, however, you will be excluded. Ah, the elite are above the system again.
The Philippines’ new scheme will be run by the postal service. Foreign residents in Saudi Arabia will soon be required to register their fingerprints to access any government service
Bulgaria’s biometric ID system, which is made by Siemens, won’t scale properly. If all the printing stations across the country are running, the system gets blocked. Instead of fixing the software problem, Bulgaria is, instead, running half the systems in consecutive shifts. The system is, essentially, broken and many people cannot obtain their biometric passports. People are waiting months to get their ID. Under the new system, IDs were supposed to be issued within 30 days.
In the United States, there are numerous fights against ID systems every day. There are major fights over a national work ID. Known as The Biometric Enrollment, Locally-stored Information, and Electronic Verification of Employment (BELIEVE) System, it is being pushed by politicians in Washington. It’s riddled with privacy and civil liberties concerns. There are also concerns that, if Americans are forced into a national ID, the US Supreme Court will like the idea, leaving Americans out in the cold.
The United States will also be issuing new green cards. First, they will actually be green. Second, holographic images, and laser engraved fingerprint information will be stored on them. RFID chips will also be used so that customs and border patrol agents can read the card at a distance. Naturally, no one has given a thought about how easy it is to clone a card you can read from far away.
The former airport Clear ID program is back up and running. It is now known as Alclear. The company also wants to expand the ID program to more places than just airports, including places of work.
Biometrics may be here to stay as an accepted practice. IEEE has created a Certified Biometrics Professional program. We learn of new biometric ID schemes every day, from many different countries. While the UK may be scrapping theirs for now, the USA is still fighting to implement one. Its citizens, however, vow to keep protesting against a national ID.
Britain and America may still end up with a national ID. It seems inevitable with so many people willing to line up and give their privacy away just so they can feel better about themselves and claim that they helped a bit with security. Too bad most of it is security theater and they willingly give away hard fought civil liberties in the process.
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