The Proposed National ID Card: Your Passport to a Police State

The Proposed National ID Card

Technical Problems with National ID Cards which make their promised benefits infeasible.

It is one thing to propose a fashionably hi-tech idea like the National ID Card, with the promise of a foolproof solution to some of the country's many problems. But it's another thing to actually make it work as promised. There isn't an ID card format in existence that can't be counterfeited, stolen, lost, copied, accidentally erased or compromised in some other way.

National ID Cards: Analysis and commentary by Bruce Schneier of Counterpane Internet Security.

Real ID's, Real Dangers. Have you ever wondered what good it does when they look at your driver's license at the airport? Let me assure you, as a former bureaucrat partly responsible for the 1996 decision to create a photo-ID requirement, it no longer does any good whatsoever. The ID check is not done by federal officers but by the same kind of minimum-wage rent-a-cops who were doing the inspection of carry-on luggage before 9/11.

Note: Airline insanity is a related subject on another page.

AP: National ID a 'Nightmare' for States. An anti-terrorism law creating a national standard for all driver's licenses by 2008 isn't just upsetting civil libertarians and immigration rights activists. State motor vehicle officials nationwide who will have to carry out the Real ID Act say its authors grossly underestimated its logistical, technological and financial demands.

Risks of National Identity (NID) Cards: We must distinguish between the apparent identity claimed by an NID and the actual identity of an individual, and consider the underlying technology of NID cards and the infrastructures supporting those cards. It's instructive to consider the problems of passports and drivers' licenses. These supposedly unique IDs are often forged. Rings of phony ID creators abound, for purposes including both crime and terrorism. Every attempt thus far at hardening ID cards against forgery has been compromised.

National ID Will Not Improve Security. There are times when this great nation would benefit tremendously from a good case of congressional gridlock. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a national ID bill, which is a proposal that masquerades as immigration reform. We need immigration reform to stop our country from being overrun by illegal immigrants almost as much as we don't need this bill.

National ID Cards: A Bad Idea That Won't Work. The idea of making Americans carry a national ID card bearing their photographs and fingerprints or other identifiers isn't just an assault on civil liberties, it would also be loaded with problems and take years to implement, experts say.

Proposed "Enhanced" Licenses Are Costly to Security and Privacy. A so-called "enhanced" driver's license or identification card contains more data and different technology than current licenses and ID cards. Citizenship designations and wireless radio frequency identification (RFID) technology chips will be added to the cards.

RFID Passports cloned wholesale. Using inexpensive off-the-shelf components (a Motorola RFID reader and antenna, and a PC) bought mostly on eBay and a self-developed Windows app, Chris Paget ("an information security expert") built a mobile platform in his spare time that can clone large numbers of the unique RFID tag electronic identifiers used in U.S. passport cards and next generation drivers licenses.

(Not) Combating Identity Theft with "Smart" Social Security Cards. HR 98 doesn't do anything to actually address identity theft, which isn't performed using Social Security cards in the first place. Sensible measures, like making the Social Security Number self-checking, decoupling it from identification, and penalizing corporations who fail to protect SSNs or who misuse them, are notably absent.

New UK biometric passports & identity theft: It would be fairly straightforward for a courier using a standard RFID reader to scan each passport, in its envelope, as he or she delivers it and hand the details on to an accomplice at some later time. We know that the encryption has already been broken. So. No need to steal the passport, no need even to open the envelope containing the passport. All the details taken and no evidence to show it.

Issuing Identity Cards: There are a lot of things wrong with the proliferation of identity checks at airports, hotels, government buildings, and the like. One, they don't actually solve any real security problem; seeing the identity card of someone doesn't make him any less likely to commit a terrorist act, for example. Two, it's easy to obtain a fake ID and it's really hard for a security guard to distinguish a good fake ID from a real ID. And three, they're expensive to implement and inconvenient for everyone. Given the minimal additional security these checks provide and the large cost associated with them, most of the time they're not a good security trade-off.

State workers face suspension for looking at Obama's driving records. Nine employees of Secretary of State Jesse White face suspensions of three or more days for improperly looking up the Illinois driving record of president-elect Barack Obama. The employees, who work in secretary of state offices throughout the state, include workers at licensing facilities and in the departments of Vehicle Services and Drivers Services, spokeswoman Penelope Campbell said.

Testimony of Lori L. Waters, Before the Congressional Subcommittee on Highways and Transit: Since 1954, all states have required drivers to be licensed in order to operate a motor vehicle, and there is significant diversity in state laws governing driver's licenses. Under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, the states control the rules of driver's license issuance, content, and format. This is as it should be. No longer does your driver's license just prove that you know the rules of the road. The private and public sectors are using it as an identity verification document, and because of this, we are reaching a crossroads. The real question is not about a person getting a driver's license fraudulently to drive around town but rather about what else he could do with it - open a bank account, cash a check, get a library card, board a plane, etc.

Coalition letter to members of Congress opposing National ID. We, representing a broad and diverse coalition of national organizations, urge you to oppose H.R. 4633, the "Driver's License Modernization Act of 2002." This legislation establishes a nationwide identification system (national ID) through the bureaucratic back door of state drivers' licenses.

What price security? Experts doubt national ID and encryption bans are effective.

Transportation Worker ID Card Riddled With Privacy and Security Holes. TWIC was created in November 2002 as part of maritime security legislation, but the pilot program was delayed for two years and the cost ballooned. The pilot program was to include up to 200,000 participants at 34 locations in six states; however, only 4,000 prototype cards were issued at 26 sites in six states and the pilot program's cost nearly doubled from $12.3 million to $22.8 million.

Too Many Unresolved Questions On ID Cards, Study Panel Says. Serious concerns about a national identification system, including how privacy would be protected and how misuse would be prevented, should be addressed before such a system is created, a National Academy of Sciences committee said.

ePassports can be cloned in five minutes. The ePassport is one of the many measures pursued by the United States and governments internationally after the horror of 11 September. … But as the implementation of the scheme gets underway it is becoming clear that there could be serious problems with it. With the old passport, we knew where we stood. If you lost it you knew you had lost it, but with the new, machine readable passports the story is very different.

Hacked passport crashes RFID readers. A hacker has demonstrated an exploit against the RFID tags in the new US passports that allows him to clone a passport and modify the RFID with bad code that will crash the passport readers.

'Fakeproof' e-passport is cloned in minutes. New microchipped passports designed to be foolproof against identity theft can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports. Tests for The Times exposed security flaws in the microchips introduced to protect against terrorism and organised crime. The flaws also undermine claims that 3,000 blank passports stolen last week were worthless because they could not be forged.

E-Passports Signed, Sealed, Delivered — But Not Like You May Think. Two years ago security researcher Lukas Grunwald showed how the chips in new electronic passports could easily be cloned. … Changing data on the passport chip would change the hash, indicating that the chip had been manipulated and thus invalidating it. Dutch security researcher Jeroen van Beek, from the University of Amsterdam, recently made headlines when The Times in London reported that he could get a "cloned and manipulated" passport chip to be recognized as legitimate by passport readers.

Rights Groups Oppose National ID Card. Civil-liberties and consumer groups are urging President Bush to oppose efforts to create a national identification system, saying that it would intrude on privacy.

The National ID Card: If they build it, will it work? (The author does not seem opposed to the idea.)

Political Problems with National ID Cards

The National ID will only accelerate our transformation into a police state. After you are stripped of your individual freedom and liberty, you'll find that the National ID in your pocket won't make you any safer. But at that point, you can't go back to the good old days.

The National Loss-of-Freedoms Card. HR 418, a massively unconstitutional and un-American disaster for our freedom, just passed the House of Representatives. It does nothing to stem the flow of illegal aliens. Instead, HR 418 will establish a national ID card [and, among other things] re-define "terrorism" in broad new terms that could include members of firearms rights and anti-abortion groups or other such groups as determined by whoever is in power at the time.

Reckless ID card plan will destroy nation's freedom: The Government has embarked on its most reckless policy to date in pursuing the idea of national identity cards. The initiative will fundamentally change the nature of government and the character of the nation.

San Francisco approves ID cards that exclude gender. Next year, San Francisco will issue municipal identification cards showing the usual name, birthdate and photo. What the card won't include: gender.

San Francisco delays rollout of ID card for all residents. San Francisco is delaying a controversial program that would provide identification cards to all residents regardless of legal status. Mayor Gavin Newsom requested last month that the ID card plan — closely watched by other cities considering similar initiatives — be suspended "until a thorough review has been completed," according to a letter sent to the city administrator.

Muslim woman gets license wearing head scarf. A Muslim woman has received her Oklahoma driver's license with a picture of her wearing her traditional head scarf after her previous attempt to renew her license failed. Monique Barrett renewed her driver's license Thursday at the Department of Public Safety headquarters in Oklahoma City.

Obama Throws Muslim Women Under the Bus. Let's face it: The Islamic face-veil and headscarf have become symbols of "jihad" and Islamic religious apartheid or intolerance in the West. And, it is spooky, even frightening to see women, (or are they men?), face-veiled or wearing full-body shrouds. Masked people, hooded people, have cut themselves off from human contact; they can see you, but you can't see them. You cannot see their expressions in response to what you are saying. I would not want to appear before a masked judge, study with a masked teacher, hire a masked lawyer, etc. Would you?

Governors balk at new US license rules. Fees for a new driver's license could triple. Lines at motor vehicles offices could stretch out the door. Governors warned yesterday [7/18/2005] that states and consumers would bear much of the burden for a terrorism-driven push to turn licenses into a national ID card.

Cyber-Surveillance in the Wake of 9/11: "Cyber-snooping" has been the subject of heated debate in recent years between the law enforcement community and many privacy advocates who seek to secure their right of free speech and to guard against "unreasonable searches" that new technologies can make easier. The fears of both sides are well-founded.

National Dragnet Is a Click Away. Three decades ago, Congress imposed limits on domestic intelligence activity after revelations that the FBI, Army, local police and others had misused their authority for years to build troves of personal dossiers and monitor political activists and other law-abiding Americans. Since those reforms, police and federal authorities have observed a wall between law enforcement information-gathering, relating to crimes and prosecutions, and more open-ended intelligence that relates to national security and counterterrorism.

The Editor says...
When a Big Brother database exists, and hundreds of major and minor bureaucrats have access to it, the potential for abuse is high. You don't have to engage in criminal behavior to become the victim of such misuse. Look around on the internet and you can find a long list of politically motivated IRS audits. That is exactly why so many people were concerned about the treatment afforded to "Joe the Plumber" during the recent presidential campaign. His political enemies started digging into their databases, hoping to find some dirt. I could be wrong, but this might be a symptom of an impending Obama thugocracy.

Forced National ID is the Gateway to Forced Implanted Bio Chips. Last week the House of Representatives passed an unconstitutional piece of legislation which will force all Americans to accept a national ID/driver's license. Those who refuse to accept this card will not be able to fly, take the train and one day you will be unable to travel the roads and streets without "your papers, please!"

Reject the National ID Card. Washington politicians are once again seriously considering imposing a national identification card — and it may well become law before the end of the 108th Congress. The much-hailed 9/11 Commission report released in July recommends a federal identification card and, worse, a "larger network of screening points" inside the United States. Does this mean we are to have "screening points" inside our country where American citizens will be required to "show their papers" to government officials? It certainly sounds that way!

Automatic registration for the draft: The Texas DPS is going to automatically register 18 to 26 year old males with the US Selective Service (military draft) when they apply for or renew a Texas driver's license.

Editor's Note: This raises some important questions. How many state agencies use their leverage to gather information for federal agencies? And what other agencies will begin using this technique?

National ID Cards: My primary objection isn't the totalitarian potential of national IDs, nor the likelihood that they'll create a whole immense new class of social and economic dislocations. Nor is it the opportunities they will create for colossal boondoggles by government contractors. My objection to the national ID card is much simpler. It won't work. It won't make us more secure. In fact, everything I've learned about security over the last 20 years tells me that once it is put in place, a national ID card program will actually make us less secure.

The "Real ID Act" is all wrong. This measure is a horrible piece of legislation. It would erect new barriers to block those coming to our shores fleeing persecution, bar the granting of driving privileges to those who operate motor vehicles on our highways and cut off immigrants from basic due process and fundamental fairness in immigration proceedings.

New Hampshire vs. REAL ID: Every once in a while, our legislators do something to make us proud. And New Hampshire's House has done just that — by telling Washington's Big Government crowd to take its National ID Card and stuff it. The Senate should follow suit. A National ID Card would do nothing to thwart terrorism. Remember that the 9/11 hijackers were in this country legally and had legally obtained documents.

The New Threat of Big Brother: The REAL ID Act. At first blush, the requirements of the REAL ID Act do not appear onerous. For example, the Act commands state governments to include nine categories of information on all state-issued driver's licenses such as full legal name, a digital photograph, and address of principle residence. These items are already found on most, if not all, driver's licenses. However, the ninth category requires states to use a "common machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements." In implementing this and the other requirements, the Secretary of Homeland Security would be empowered to impose regulations arbitrarily on all citizens. This broad and highly intrusive power is key, considering the recent advancements in technology.

National ID at the Crossroads. On May 10, 2005, President Bush signed into law the REAL ID Act, a sweeping measure that will establish new identification requirements across the United States. The legislation mandates federal identification standards and requires states DMVs, which have become the targets of identity thieves, to collect sensitive personal information. Lawmakers in both parties urged debate on REAL ID and more than 600 organizations opposed the legislation. Moreover, the legislation passed at a time of growing concern about identity theft and the reliability of new hi-tech identification.

States Estimate Cost of Real ID Will Be $11 Billion. The National Conference of State Legislatures released a report on the Real ID Act, which estimates that that the cost to the states will be more than $11 billion over five years.

The holy grail of snoopery. All of us are willing to give up some of our personal privacy in return for greater safety. That's why we gladly suffer the pat-downs and "wanding" at airports, and show a local photo ID before boarding. Such precautions contribute to our peace of mind. However, the fear of terror attack is being exploited by law enforcement sweeping for suspects as well as by commercial marketers seeking prospects. It has emboldened the zealots of intrusion to press for the holy grail of snoopery — a mandatory national ID.

Who gave your rights away? Many conservatives, liberals and libertarians are protesting the numerous invasions of your liberty that Congress and the Bush administration have imposed during the past two months.

It's 9 PM, Does the Government Know Where You Are? We are at a crucial time in our nation's history. The freedoms we are willing to give up today in the name of peace of mind and personal security are the ones we may never see tomorrow. And we must remember that future generations — our children and grandchildren — will reap the fruits of our rash decisions.

National ID Cards and Military Tribunals: Congress should not hastily enact any proposal simply because it is packaged as an "anti-terrorism" measure. Every proposal should be vetted for its necessity, efficacy, and constitutionality.

Your Papers, Please: From the State Drivers License to a National Identification System [PDF file]

Doors close on bus case. Deborah Davis' supporters, at first jubilant to learn Wednesday morning [12/7/2005] that she will not be prosecuted, were dismayed to learn hours later that officers of the Federal Protective Service still will ask passengers on the public bus to show their identification. The policy applies to all passengers, including those, as in Davis' case, who are traveling through the Federal Center and not getting off the bus there.

Five Reasons Why National ID Cards Should Be Rejected

IDs — Not That Easy: Questions About Nationwide Identity Systems.

Reckless ID card plan will destroy the nation's freedom. The Government has embarked on its most reckless policy to date in pursuing the idea of national identity cards. The initiative will fundamentally change the nature of government and the character of the nation. This is inevitable because the modern ID card is no simple piece of plastic. It is the visible component of a web of interactive technology that fuses the most intimate characteristics of the individual with the machinery of state.

It's not about control, is it? None of the proponents of these schemes has ever adequately explained how further tracking, monitoring and scrutiny of the population will combat terrorism. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Centralized authority over identity verification would actually increase the risk of ID theft and the scope of harm when, and not if, it occurs. Moreover, a criminal or terrorist would actually be able to skirt other, multi-layered security measures with possession of the all important National ID.

Big Brother's Solution to Illegal Immigration: Republicans in the House and Senate are moving quickly forward with Orwellian legislation that would create a national computerized registration system for all American workers. The new federal computer worker registry, which is intended to reduce illegal immigration, is the crucial first step toward the implementation of a national identification card system for all 120 million American workers.

National Identification Schemes and the Fight against Terrorism: By relying on the wrong approach to security, national identification schemes may actually create a false sense of security that leaves us more vulnerable than before.

Immigration corrupts: If the government cannot control the documents it issues, what is the point of issuing more documents, such as a national identity card?

Terrorist Attacks Renew National ID Debate: Federal law is one of several possible routes to establishing a national ID card. It now appears more probable that a national ID would evolve bureaucratically from other forms of identification. The most likely candidate is a card that nearly every U.S. resident over age 16 already possesses, the driver's license.

What could possibly go wrong?

The National ID Card is a great idea, unless you have concerns about losing your privacy, ID theft, leaky interactive databases, and the weaknesses of RFID chips. You should also pay attention to the many stories of private information databases being cracked, hacked and published on the internet.

Well, for one thing, there's always the problem of counterfeiters. Not college kids making fake ID's, but foreign governments bent on disruption of our economy. If the design of the $20 bill has to be changed every seven or eight years because foreign governments are engaged in counterfeiting, you can bet the same problem will complicate the National ID Card program.

Fake ID business is booming. North Carolina officials are reporting an alarming growth in the size and sophistication of the fake identification business, which has graduated from nuisance industry to national security threat. At the end of October, the Department of Motor Vehicles had recorded 373 arrests for driver's license fraud, which includes both manufacturing and possessing the bogus IDs. That's a larger number in 10 months than the 294 arrests made during all of last year.

UK national ID card cloned in 12 minutes. Using a Nokia mobile phone and a laptop computer, [Adam] Laurie was able to copy the data on a card that is being issued to foreign nationals in minutes. He then created a cloned card, and with help from another technology expert, changed all the data on the new card. This included the physical details of the bearer, name, fingerprints and other information. He then rewrote data on the card, reversing the bearer's status from "not entitled to benefits" to "entitled to benefits". He then added fresh content that would be visible to any police officer or security official who scanned the card, saying, "I am a terrorist — shoot on sight."

Met Police wants handheld ID card readers. A tender notice published in the Official Journal of the EU said the Met was looking to award a three-year framework agreement to supply, support and integrate handheld mobile identification units (MIUs).

Government spends £140,000 to keep ID card review secret. The Office of Government Commerce has spent at least £140,000 on legal fees to keep secret two early Gateway reviews on the national ID cards scheme. Costs will rise further if government lawyers appeal against a new order by the Information Tribunal to disclose the reviews.

Social Security number code cracked, study claims. For people born after 1988 — when the government began issuing numbers at birth — the researchers were able to identify, in a single attempt, the first five Social Security digits for 44 percent of individuals. And they got all nine digits for 8.5 percent of those people in fewer than 1,000 attempts. For smaller states their accuracy was considerably higher than in larger ones.

Obama gets busy shifting the wealth. Don't be surprised if someday soon you're asked to punch in your Social Security number when you swipe your credit card at the gasoline pump. Why? So your income tax files can be checked to determine how much you'll pay per-gallon — the more you make, the higher the price.

The hazards of a cashless society are very clear to those who will observe.
Man charged $23,148,855,308,184,500 for one pack of cigarettes. A New Hampshire man says he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and was charged over 23 quadrillion dollars.

The Editor says...
First of all, how is a pre-paid debit card capable of incurring a 23 quadrillion dollar charge? And secondly, if the customer had been charged $23 instead of $23 quadrillion, what are the chances that he could have recovered his money?

Glitch hits Visa users with more than $23 quadrillion charge. A technical snafu left some Visa prepaid cardholders stunned and horrified Monday to see a $23,148,855,308,184,500 charge on their statements. That's about 2,007 times the size of the national debt.

The Editor says...
Even at the end of Obama's term as president, that will still be at least twice as much as the national debt.

Delray Beach bureau was one-stop shop for illegal driver licenses. Five women who worked at the Delray Beach driver's license office and a Delray Beach man have been charged in connection with a scheme to provide hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal immigrants with valid driver's licenses.

Hackers' discount — stolen card details for 8 cents. The theft of personal information by hackers is so prevalent — and efficient — that stolen credit card details now sell for as little as eight cents a card, a report by one of the world's biggest computer security companies says.

Undercover Agent Obtained Passport with Fraudulent IDs; Passed Airport Security. Carrying a fake New York birth certificate and a phony Florida driver's license, an investigator walked into a Maryland post office in December to apply for a U.S. passport, filling out documents with the Social Security number of a man who died in 1965. In four days, the investigator received his passport.

Good or bad, this was an unintended consequence:
A REAL Problem for Obama. On his second day in office, President Obama issued an executive order to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within one year — without any plan for how to dispose of the 241 detainees held there. With the clock ticking, the president is discovering that closing Guantanamo is more easily said than done, especially now that his own party in Congress has deserted him. ... His greatest obstacle could be a national security law — and one that he voted for. The REAL ID Act of 2005 prohibits anyone affiliated with terrorist activity from entering and living in the United States.

Fake documents swamp Houston. Illegal immigrants fearful of being caught in stepped-up workplace raids are fueling a growing market in Houston for phony immigration and work documents. The result, experts say, is a glut of false, altered and counterfeit documents that are easily obtained at Houston-area flea markets, businesses and clandestine printing shops set up in homes and apartments.

Crime 'franchise' hub in Denver. Federal and state authorities are working to permanently close a metro Denver counterfeit documents ring allegedly masterminded by a Mexico-based crime family they believe operates in at least 33 states, churning out tens of millions of dollars worth of fake IDs.

Passport official quits amid probes. The State Department official in charge of U.S. passport services stepped down yesterday [4/4/2008] amid investigations into security breaches in the document records and overcharges for blank passports. In the latest blow against the agency, court documents show a State Department employee provided personal information from passport applications for use in a credit-card fraud scheme.

Treasury Office Faults IRS Computer Security. Two new IRS computer systems that will eventually cost taxpayers almost $2 billion are being put into service despite known security and privacy vulnerabilities, a Treasury watchdog said in a report coming out Thursday [10/16/2008]. The office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said Internal Revenue Service officials failed to ensure that identified weaknesses had been addressed before putting the new systems into use.

State Department warns of possible identity theft. The State Department said Friday it has warned nearly 400 passport applicants of a security breach in its records system that may have left them open to identity theft. The department has so far notified 383 people — most of them in the Washington, D.C. area — that their passport applications containing personal information, including Social Security numbers, may have been illegally accessed and used to open fraudulent credit card accounts, spokesman Sean McCormack said.

School ID Rule Has Some Seeing Red. Hall passes just don't cut it anymore at a Missouri high school. Now the staff and 1,300 students have to wear IDs when they roam the halls.

You Want Pancakes? Show Your Driver's License First. In Quincy Mass, an International House of Pancakes (IHOP) was requiring driver's licenses before you got your food. It was apparently an attempt at stopping people from skipping out on their bill.

Identity theft linked to illegal immigration. Nobody likes getting a letter from the IRS. So imagine Amanda Bien's reaction last Valentine's Day when the agency wrote to demand $3,300 in back taxes. For jobs she never worked. Five of them. In multiple states. … Someone, somewhere, got Bien's name and Social Security number and gave it a workout.

Private details of EVERY family in Britain 'lost' by taxman. Alistair Darling had to make an emergency statement to the Commons revealing that records of 7.2 million bank accounts of all parents or guardians who claim child benefits had gone missing. ... A total of 25 million people's names [addresses, bank numbers and National Insurance numbers] are on the discs, potentially leaving them all at risk of identity fraud.

UK Government disks were not well encrypted. There are electronic connections on multiple security levels between those departments -- there was really no need at all for that data to travel physically. And this lot wants the population to agree to a central IDcard scheme?

Election Computers Stolen in Tennessee. Thieves stole laptop computers containing the names and social security numbers of every registered voter in the city from election commission offices over the Christmas holiday. The computers also contain voters' addresses and phone numbers.

Data loss shakes voter trust. The Metro Nashville building from which thieves stole two computers containing sensitive voter data does not have security guards on duty for half of the day on weekends, and it has no alarm system or video surveillance. The Metro Office Building on Second Avenue South has had one guard on duty 12 hours a day on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays for about 10 years, said Velvet Hunter, Metro General Services' assistant director for administration. She declined to specify the hours….

Mandatory Student ID Cards Contain RFIDs. Parents in a northern California public school district and civil liberties groups are urging a school district to terminate the mandatory use of Radio Frequency Identification tags by students. A letter was sent today [2/8/2005] expressing alarm at the Brittan School District's use of mandatory ID badges that include a RFID device that tracks the students' movements. The device transmits private information to a computer on campus whenever a student passes under one of the scanners. The ID badges also include the student's name, photo, grade, school name, class year and the four-digit school ID number. Students are required to prominently display the badges by wearing them around the neck at all times.

Parents protest radio ID tags for students. The only grade school in this rural town is requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track their every move. Some parents are outraged, fearing it will rob their children of privacy.

(More about RFID issues.)

Ordering a Pizza Could be Complicated by Your National ID Card. A Shockwave satire, presented by the ACLU, which makes some interesting points about the privacy-destroying potential of the National ID Card. I'm no fan of the ACLU, but at least they can see where this road is headed.

Are new passports an identity-theft risk? Privacy advocates warn data chips can be "seen" by anyone with reader.

REAL ID: The REAL ID Act requires driver's licenses to include a "common machine-readable technology." This will, of course, make identity theft easier. … It actually doesn't matter how well the states and federal government protect the data on driver's licenses, as there will be parallel commercial databases with the same information.

Preventing Identity Theft by Terrorists and Criminals: A statement by Congressman Ron Paul: "It is long-past time we recognized the ways in which Congress' transformation of the Social Security number into a de facto uniform identifier facilitates identity crimes.

Smart Cards: Big Brother's Little Helpers. Smart cards will be able to generate records of the date, time and location of all movements on public and private transport systems, along with details of all goods purchased, telephone use, car parking, attendance at the cinema, and any other activities paid for by smart cards. These records will also be processed and stored in central databases, where they will be used to create detailed customer profiles.

Identity Theft Diminishes Military Capability. The crux of identity theft is interactive databases. Once false information is entered, it results in a geometric progression similar to a computer virus. This can result in false warrants, arrest records, default judgments, tax problems and ruined credit.

Can You Prevent Identity Theft? The best approach is to be proactive and take steps to avoid being a victim. Here are a few of the suggestions.

Number of Identity Theft Complaints Double Last Year. Complaints about identity theft soar as the fast-growing crime tops the government's list of consumer frauds for a third consecutive year.

Privacy advocates sue over national IDs: A privacy group says it has filed a lawsuit against the federal Office of Homeland Security in an attempt to gain access to information about a proposed national identification system.

Anonymity in America: Does National Security Preclude It? Anonymous speech has proud roots stretching to the origins of America. Gentlemen calling themselves "Publius" wrote the Federalist Papers. Thomas Paine's Common Sense was signed by "An Englishman." Today, computer programs that allow us to encrypt emails – to scramble them such that only the intended "key-holding" recipient can decipher the message — represent perhaps the newest incarnation of the old tradition of speaking both freely and anonymously.

Note: There is more on this page about identity theft and leaky databases.

Massive interactive databases

Numerous anecdotes can be found to demonstrate that giant databases with personal information aren't completely safe and secure in the hands of big business or big government. That's already a problem, but imagine the seriousness of this problem when all aspects of your identification are merged into one database.

Putting Private Info on Government Database. Far more personal information on students than is necessary is being collected by public schools, according to the Fordham Law School Center on Law and Information Policy, which investigated education records in all 50 states. States are failing to safeguard students' privacy and protect them from data misuse. Some states collect a lot of data that has nothing to do with student test scores, including Social Security numbers, disciplinary records, family wealth indicators, student pregnancies, student mental health, illness and jail sentences. A couple of states record the date of a student's last medical exam and a student's weight.

England's NHS loses patient data. Bad news: A National Health Service employee lost a flash drive containing personal information of up to 6,360 patients. Good news: The data on the flash drive was encrypted. Bad news: The password was written on a sticky-note attached to the drive.

TSA widens test of biometric IDs. The U.S. government is spending $25 million this fiscal year to road test a universal secure identity card loaded with biometric and personal data and tied to government "watch lists." Though the program is aimed at simplifying the security checks that airport personnel and other transportation workers must go through, privacy experts are warning of unintended consequences.

Slippery Frogs and the US Supreme Court: The more information we freely give up, the more information will be demanded of us, and probably demanded at some near-future time by force of law.

'Problem driver' database flawed. A federal database of more than 40 million "problem drivers" contains hundreds of thousands of phony Social Security numbers, a new report says. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General estimates there are more than 600,000 invalid Social Security numbers — such as 111-22-3333 and 222-33-4444 — in the National Driver Registry. The database also contains about 161,000 duplicate numbers in which different drivers are using the same Social Security information.

Research Explores Data Mining, Privacy. As new disclosures mount about government surveillance programs, computer science researchers hope to wade into the fray by enabling data mining that also protects individual privacy. Largely by employing the head-spinning principles of cryptography, the researchers say they can ensure that law enforcement, intelligence agencies and private companies can sift through huge databases without seeing names and identifying details in the records.

Federal Data-Sharing Program Raises Student Privacy Concerns. On September 1, The New York Times, USA Today, and other media outlets reported a student at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, working with The Associated Press, had uncovered a little-known data-sharing program conducted by the FBI and U.S. Department of Education. The program was disbanded shortly after the story broke.

Personal details of 84,000 prison inmates lost in security blunder. The personal details of the entire prison population south of the Border have been lost in a massive security breach at the Home Office, it was revealed last night. Information on tens of thousands of criminals — including expected release dates — was lost while private contractors hired by the government were transferring files between computers.

Personal data of a million bank customers found on computer sold on eBay for £35. The Mail Source employee sold the computer to Andrew Chapman, a 56-year-old IT manager from Oxford. It held account numbers, phone numbers, signatures and other personal details, none of which are thought to have been handed to any third parties.

FBI's Gun Ban Listing Swells. Since the Virginia Tech shootings last spring, the FBI has more than doubled the number of people nationwide who are prohibited from buying guns because of mental health problems, the Justice Department said yesterday. Justice officials said the FBI's "Mental Defective File" has ballooned from 175,000 names in June to nearly 400,000, primarily because of additions from California.

HIPAA, Guns, and Public Health. Now, most of us assume such sensitive health records are protected in the interest of "privacy." Isn't that what we've been assured by HIPAA? So what's the loophole that permits the feds access to sensitive hospital records to make their lists? What if I had an anxiety disorder or depression in my medical history requiring inpatient admission. Would I end up on the FBI's "Mental Defective File?"

More States Adding Mental Health Records to FBI Database. States have doubled the number of mental health records submitted to the FBI's background-check system since the Virginia Tech shooting last April, in a stepped up effort to keep mentally disturbed individuals from purchasing firearms.

200,000 medical records sent to wrong patients, some with SSNs. BC&BS sent an estimated 202,000 benefits information letters containing personal and health information — identities, ID numbers, and service details — to the wrong addresses last week, Some letters also contained SSNs.

11 Charged in Theft of 41 Million Card Numbers. Federal prosecutors have charged 11 people with stealing more than 41 million credit and debit card numbers, cracking what officials said on Tuesday appeared to be the largest hacking and identity theft ring ever exposed.

USDA Announces Hacker Stole D.C. Area Employee Database. A hacker broke into the Agriculture Department's computer system and may have obtained names, Social Security numbers and photos of 26,000 Washington-area employees and contractors, the department said Wednesday [6/21/2006].

Data lost for J.C. Penney, other retailers' card customers. Personal information on about 650,000 customers of J.C. Penney and up to 100 other retailers could be compromised after a computer tape went missing. GE Money, which handles credit card operations for Penney and many other retailers, said Thursday night [1/17/2008] that the missing information includes Social Security numbers for about 150,000 people.

Credit card data stolen from supermarket chain. A computer hacker stole thousands of credit card numbers after breaching security at two U.S. grocery store chains owned by Belgium-based Delhaize Group SA, the companies said on Monday [3/17/2008]. Nearly 2,000 cases of fraud have been linked to the breach….

Lost DOT Laptops: Compromised Personal Data? A series of data breaches at agencies under the United States Department of Transportation has put the Personal Identification Information of at least 133,000 people at risk. According to information WTOP obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, since 2001, the DOT has lost nearly 400 laptop computers and had nine instances when Personal Identification Information was lost or stolen.

IRS: Kansas City lost our tapes. A federal investigation of missing Internal Revenue Service tapes from City Hall in Kansas City has concluded that the city failed to follow 'proper safeguards for protecting federal tax return information.' … The IRS has never said what information was on the tapes, how many taxpayers were affected, or whether those taxpayers would ever be notified about the missing information.

1,100 Laptops Missing From Commerce Dept. More than 1,100 laptop computers have vanished from the Department of Commerce since 2001, including nearly 250 from the Census Bureau containing such personal information as names, incomes and Social Security numbers, federal officials said yesterday [9/21/2006].

More "lost laptop" cases like this are filed under Uncle Sam loses stuff.

AT&T hack exposes 19,000 identities. AT&T on Tuesday [8/29/2006] said hackers broke into one of its computer systems and accessed personal data on thousands of customers who used its online store.

State Street: Data stolen from vendor. State Street Corp. said yesterday [5/29/2008] that a disk drive containing personal details from 5,500 employees and 40,000 customer accounts was stolen from the office of another firm hired for data analysis. The incident could leave individuals open to identity theft and is the latest example to show how financial companies can be vulnerable to the physical loss of devices storing information, no matter how strong their online safeguards.

Ohio hires expert to review data theft. The state has hired a computer security expert to determine the likelihood of someone getting access to the data on a stolen backup storage device, Gov. Ted Strickland said Sunday. … Previously, it was revealed the device contained the names and Social Security numbers of all 64,000 state employees, as well as information about 53,797 people enrolled in the state's pharmacy benefits management program and the names and Social Security numbers of about 75,532 dependents.

AOL Proudly Releases Massive Amounts of Private Data. AOL must have missed the uproar over the DOJ's demand for "anonymized" search data last year that caused all sorts of pain for Microsoft and Google. That's the only way to explain their release of data that includes 20 million web queries from 650,000 AOL users. The data includes all searches from those users for a three month period this year, as well as whether they clicked on a result, what that result was and where it appeared on the result page.

E-Mail Gaffe Publicizes Job Seekers in Albany. Gov. Eliot Spitzer made his name, in part, on indiscreet e-mail messages, as any number of executives who were pursued by the attorney general's office in recent years can attest. Now his administration has sent out an indiscreet e-mail message of its own: An e-mail response to people seeking jobs as spokesmen included the e-mail addresses of 227 other job applicants, including reporters and local and city government employees.

Sailors' Data Posted on the Web. The Navy has begun a criminal investigation after Social Security numbers and other personal data for 28,000 sailors and family members were found on a civilian Web site.

One Click Leads to 20 Years of Your Info. Ray Schabell recently logged on to a popular people-search Web site, and was surprised to learn just how much personal information about himself was available with a couple of mouse clicks.

Energy Department Discloses Data Theft. A hacker stole a file containing the names and Social Security numbers of 1,500 people working for the Energy Department's nuclear weapons agency. But the incident last September, somewhat similar to recent problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs, was not reported to senior officials until two days ago, officials told a congressional hearing yesterday [6/9/2006]. None of the victims was notified, they said.

IRS Laptop Lost With Data on 291 People. An Internal Revenue Service employee lost an agency laptop early last month that contained sensitive personal information on 291 workers and job applicants, a spokesman said yesterday [6/10/2006]. The IRS's Terry L. Lemons said the employee checked the laptop as luggage aboard a commercial flight while traveling to a job fair and never saw it again. The computer contained unencrypted names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and fingerprints of the employees and applicants, Lemons said.

College Door Ajar for Online Criminals. Since January, at least 845,000 people have had sensitive information jeopardized in 29 security failures at colleges nationwide. In these incidents, compiled by identity theft experts who monitor media reports, hackers have gained access to Social Security numbers and, in some cases, medical records.

Laptop Stolen From D.C. Home. A laptop containing personal data — including Social Security numbers — of 13,000 District workers and retirees was stolen Monday from the Southeast Washington home of an employee of ING U.S. Financial Services, the company said yesterday. ING, which administers the District's retirement plan, known as DCPlus, notified the city about the theft late Friday [6/16/2006].

VA Official Steps Down After Data Theft. A Veteran Affairs deputy assistant secretary who didn't immediately notify top officials about a theft of 26.5 million veterans' personal information is stepping down, citing missteps that led to the security breach.

Government hit by rash of data breaches. The government agency charged with fighting identity theft said Thursday [6/22/2006] it had lost two government laptops containing sensitive personal data, the latest in a series of breaches encompassing millions of people.

Experts to form ID theft research center. An alliance of businesses, colleges and federal crime fighters will combine their expertise at a new research center that will study the problems of identity theft and fraud.

Big Brother's Database: Under the guise of crime prevention, the government is creating databases to track your every move, and stripping what is left of your privacy.

Data theft hit 80 percent of active military. Social Security numbers and other personal information for as many as 2.2 million U.S. military personnel — including nearly 80 percent of the active-duty force — were among the data stolen from the home of a Department of Veterans Affairs analyst last month, federal officials said yesterday [6/5/2006], raising concerns about national security as well as identity theft.

Unlicensed Fraud: How bribery and lax security at state motor vehicle offices nationwide lead to identity theft and illegal driver's licenses. [PDF file]

Boston College reveals alumni data breach. Boston College is fighting against an attack on its fund-raising databases, which may have exposed the personal data of more than 100,000 alumni.

Personal Identification Is Too Important to Be Run by Government: When showing your card is required before you can board a plane, rent a car, use the library, get a phone, buy a gun, enter the US, leave the US, buy a house, get a loan, see the doctor, buy medicine, or enroll your child in school, the opportunities for "denial of service" against those of whom the state does not approve are chilling indeed.

Pentagon Creating Student Database. The Defense Department has begun working with BeNow Inc, a private marketing firm, to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches. The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates.

USC admissions site cracked wide open. A programming error in the University of Southern California's online system for accepting applications from prospective students left the personal information of users publicly accessible, school officials confirmed this week.

I'm Sorry, Dave, You're Speeding. While Toyota views its [Australian] concept car as nothing more than a showcase for cool gizmos, its electronic logging functions would creep into everyday life, giving more surveillance powers to the government, critics say. Some are equally concerned at the card required to operate it, saying it's a national ID in disguise.

Central Data Banks and American Justice: A case in point is a New Hampshire woman who was arrested, handcuffed, and had her car impounded for not returning a late rental video!

Bill Would Close Gun Law Holes: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced legislation Tuesday [7/30/2002] to close major gaps in the federal firearms background check system that in a 30-month period allowed some 10,000 felons and others prohibited from gun ownership to obtain weapons. McCain said the hole is the "faulty records of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)."

Editor's Note: There you have another example of a government bureaucracy with faulty records. Please keep this in mind when the National ID Card debate gets underway. Here is another example...

30,000 personal records stolen in GMU server compromise. The server at George Mason University in Virginia was compromised by crackers who stole personal information ("names, photos, Social Security numbers and [campus ID] numbers of all members of the Mason community who have identification cards") on 30,000 students, faculty, and staff.

Top 10 List of Police Database Abuses: Your address, telephone number, Social Security number, date of birth, criminal record -- all this data and more can be accessed by police officers if they have basic information about you. Some cops, however, use their database access for less-than-honorable reasons. Some cops used police databases to harass exes and even get telephone numbers of women they see in cars.

Part 1 of 2: Medical "Privacy" Regulations Destroy Privacy: Federal privacy regulations issued by the Clinton administration on Dec. 28, 2000, and adopted by the Bush administration on April 14, 2001, perpetrate a fraud on the American people, proclaiming privacy as their goal when ever-wider access to individual medical records is their actual and intended effect.

Part 2 of 2: Medical "Privacy" Rules Advance a National ID: Why should ordinary people bother to read the medical privacy rules anyway? Media and government sources continue to assert the benign nature of the new regulations, which are said to promise cost savings through database standardization along with protection of people's medical privacy. Why be concerned?

2,000 patients hit by lab test mix-up. An Internet database – which physicians use to view lab work such as blood and urine tests – mixed up results between patients and posted records under the wrong names.

Information system for Lisbon hospitals stopped for ten days. Lisbon newspaper "O Público" reports that the main information system for the Lisbon Hospital Center, which supports three large Lisbon hospitals, has not worked since July 8. It appears that the master patient index has become inaccessible, and may be lost. … The waiting list for surgery also appears lost, although that has not been confirmed.

This is for all the people who believe anything that pops up on a computer screen:
The Risky Business of Spreadsheet Errors. Spreadsheets create an illusion of orderliness, accuracy, and integrity. The tidy rows and columns of data, instant calculations, eerily invisible updating, and other features of these ubiquitous instruments contribute to this soothing impression. At the same time, faulty spreadsheets and poor spreadsheet practices have been implicated in a wide variety of business and financial problems.

Privacy Advocates Fear National ID Scheme: State motor vehicle agencies are working on a plan to create a national driver's license by using state agreements, possibly backed by federal law, that could end-run civil rights and political opponents.

Related item: Impact of Artificial "Gummy" Fingers on Fingerprint Systems.

Photo finish: A proposed "private" database of driver's license photos turns out to have federal funding and backing.

"Smile for the US Secret Service": Image Data is purchasing driver's license photos for the USSS.

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