Problems with a Biometric National ID Card

From a data management perspective biometric id cards present many problems. For example, if the ID card was not somehow embedded into the person it still seems like it can be open to abuse or transference. For instance, if it is encoded somehow with my DNA yet someone else carries it does that mean that they are automatically trusted to be me or is there some check on my DNA to the DNA in the card?

If there is a check between the individual and the card then how could you create an unobtrusive data collection method that would allow checking of the individual to the card to ensure they are one and the same? You can’t be pricking people’s fingers every time they go to the bank. Fingerprinting would be difficult as well but not quite as obtrusive.

The question then arises of hygene. In a world that has moved to washrooms in airports where you don’t need to ever touch anything, how could we go backwards and start making people touch things again?

The idea of retina scanners seems logical at first but then you have to consider what the long term affect of having your eyes scanned would be. What kind of long term studies would be needed to ensure no harm would come to people’s sight as a result of this type of on-going stimulus of the eye. Would this put the potential implementation of the product too far into the future as to be a feasible option?

Stalder and Lyon in Surveillance as Social Sorting, bring up a good point that the initial identification system would have to be based on our existing identification systems. We have a phrase for this in the technology industry, it’s called garbage in, garbage out, and it is where a lot of the problems in technology systems start. Data collection errors are always a huge problem, particularly when you have a large data conversion project like this and you get low paid workers to do the work to keep the costs down. The problem is they don’t care because they’re low paid and in this case, as Stalder and Lyon suggest, they could likely benefit greatly from being bribed.

Finally, my last point is the potential for categorization. There would have to be something in the identifier that pointed out whether the person had a primary identifier or secondary identifier. Primary identifier would be an “at birth” biometric id rather than an id created based on secondary identification documents. This in it's essence is reminiscent of the potential beginnings for the movie GATTACA.