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Comment by gm-conspiracy | Hacker News Reader

"Yet there is nothing I can do to avoid this possibility legally."

Don't drive? I know that sucks, but with self-driving cars on the horizon, these sort of "capitulation of rights" scenarios should not need to exist.

We are very vulnerable (in terms of rights) when driving in the US.

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> We are very vulnerable (in terms of rights) when driving in the US.

We are very vulnerable (in terms of rights) in the US.

In the USA that doesn't help. If you don't have a driver's license, you have to have a "state-issued ID card", which is the same except it doesn't confer the right to drive. The only way to avoid both is to opt out of society completely, which is effectively giving up living in this country.

> If you don't have a driver's license, you have to have a "state-issued ID card", which is the same except it doesn't confer the right to drive.

Why? There are alternatives for ID and proof-of-age, such as a passport booklet/card.

They're expensive, most Americans don't have them, especially the poorer, and they're a greater hassle: people expect a driver's license. And once you've had one, they have your photo; too late to change.

Also, not having a driver's license is looked down on in most of the USA, outside a few major cities. It constrains job/dating/social/living location opportunities.

Obviously, a passport does not avoid the facial recognition problem we're talking about here.

No.

Most laws only require people requesting proof of identity accept an in-state drivers license or military ID.

In Washington I was able to request to not have a photo on my license which I started doing when they started using a facial database. The license says "NOT VALID FOR IDENTIFICATION" in large red letters, so I can't use it to buy beer. But I can use it to drive a car which is all I really need it for.

Just learned that California, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are the lone states that do not use facial recognition tech on DMV photos.

I imagine though that eventually the FBI, State Dept, states, etc. will all be combined

Or, you know, maybe our founders knew a good idea when they adopted this federalism thing.

As someone born, raised in and retired to the great state of Missouri, which is also the sole state that doesn't play big brother with narcotic prescriptions, I rather like the idea of imagining that we won't combine our law enforcement agencies in such a vertical manner.

As a California resident, I was relieved to read that we were exempt. But how can this continue with the eventual implementation of the RealID law?

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