FC: National ID? Driver's licenses to become biometric smartcards

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

Barry Steinhardt from the ACLU sends along these relevant links:
http://www.aclu.org/news/2002/n021102c.html
http://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy/AAMVA_Speech.html

The Progressive Policy Institute (linked with the Democratic
Leadership Council) wants licenses to become microchip-implanted
smartcards holding not just retinal scans or fingerprints --- but also
"food stamps, voter registration, library cards, hunting and fishing
licenses" and a wealth of corporate data like E-Z-Pass, gas station
automatic billing, and banking information.
(http://ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=140&subsecid=290&contentid=250175)

The PPI dismisses privacy concerns thusly: "A small but vocal fringe
of special interest civil liberty and privacy groups has already begun
to demagogue the issue in the media. Countering such misinformation
and paranoid scenarios about 'tracking' the movements of citizens will
take a patient and and concerted education effort."

-Declan

---

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50418,00.html

   DMVs Pushing for Standard License
   By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
   2:00 a.m. Feb. 15, 2002 PST
   
   WASHINGTON -- Your driver's license soon may become a lot smarter, and
   a lot more worrisome.
   
   State motor vehicle agencies want Congress to standardize the license,
   share more driver data between states and mandate techniques such as
   biometrics to "uniquely identify" each of America's 228 million
   drivers.
   
   The group behind the push for what critics derisively call a "national
   ID" is the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators
   (AAMVA), which met last weekend in Arlington, Virginia, to figure out
   how to talk Congress into handing them $100 million for the project.
   On Monday, AAMVA arranged for buses to take conference-goers to
   Capitol Hill for a day of lobbying legislators.
   
   Welcome to the latest tug of war, post-Sept. 11, between security and
   privacy. The AAMVA's fans in Washington note that four of the five
   hijackers who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon
   had fraudulent identifications, while detractors argue that
   standardizing drivers' licenses is tantamount to a national ID card in
   all but name -- and un-American in any form.

   [...]



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