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Comment by Godel_unicode | Hacker News Reader

If you are an American, you already have a federally issued ID it just isn’t very good. If you are an American who has traveled internationally you have at least two distinct federally issued IDs, which can get out of sync and cause a huge headache. At least 3 if you ever interacted with the IRS, 4 if you have a KTN, 5 if you have a TSA redress number…

There are plenty of places where just a drivers license isn’t acceptable (getting a passport for instance) and requires you to play the stupid 1/2 from category A/B game.

I agree that bringing up voting is a red herring, that’s a state thing and the several states should solve that for themselves. The US federal government needs a unified ID system which was designed as a robust, centralized ID system that can then be mandated for federal agencies to use.

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> If you are an American, you already have a federally issued ID it just isn’t very good.

What ID is that? If you're talking about a Social Security Card, that's not ID at all. I don't think I would call it "ID but not very good", even.

Ultimately there are a lot of people who go through life in the US who never have a federally-issued ID at all. Simply never traveling outside the US will do it for most people. And there are more people than you'd expect in the US who never leave the country.

Also agree re: voting: elections are administered by states, so a federal ID is just not even necessary here. States are perfectly capable of issuing ID, as we all know. (Granted, drivers licenses and non-driving state IDs usually don't have anything to say about citizenship status. A state-issued ID serves as authentication, not authorization, where voting is concerned.)

In what way is your social security card not an ID? It is used as a credential to identify yourself, and is one of very few such identifiers that most organizations take (i.e. I can use it to get many other IDs). Many state DMVs list it on a page called “identity documents”. All Americans have been issued their card at least once, and more to the point not having the card doesn’t mean you don’t have the ID as many people will take the number. It’s a very weak ID for a lot of reasons, but that fact alone doesn’t make it not one. It just makes it a dangerous one.

Why are you against having a good one?

Functionally, a social security number is closer to an alternate name than an ID. It doesn't contain evidence that can feasibly be used to prove that the person showing it to you is who they claim to be, the way the picture/physical descriptors on a photo ID card do. And it's not even an unpredictable name, so you can't even treat it the way you would a long unpredictable token in a security context.

> social security number is closer to an alternate name

`s/is/should be/`

If I have your social security card I can pretend to be you quite effectively as many people will accept it as an ID. They don’t care that you don’t think it is one. The ones that don’t will frequently take an alternative (read: derived) that I can get with just it.

> It doesn't contain evidence that can feasibly be used to prove…

Yes. We agree, it’s a bad ID.

We can split hairs over semantics, but personally I'm going to continue saying that something is what it actually does, and anything after that is merely the folly of man. Thus a social security number is an identifier, no matter how many powerful fools treat it as a credential.

What it does? Ok.

The state of West Virginia will give you a (non-RealID) drivers license with a social security card and 2 pieces of mail. Card to prove your identity and mail to prove that name went with a W.Va address.

It’s an ID, issued by the Federal Government, and every American has one. Now that all the insanity and gymnastics are over can we please just make it better?

That's not even good hair splitting. According to you on the other sub-thread, WV doesn't even use it as an ID. For all the logic they're applying, you could just write your name on an index card and use that instead. Even if they were using it in a superficially reasonable way, I would still class them under "powerful fools", pretending the SSN is something it's not. I find it's a clarifying perspective to call that sort of thing what it is, rather than trying to keep one foot in and one foot out of the collective delusion.

So your argument is that you’re right and the state of West Virginia is wrong? All of a sudden the thing isn’t what it actually does because you disagree with whether it should?

> I would still class them under "powerful fools"

Cool, but your opinion of them is irrelevant. They get to decide what forms of ID they’ll take, and they’ve decided to take this one.

> you could just write your name on an index card and use that instead

Of course you couldn’t, the rule is very clear that you can identify yourself with specifically a social security card. You’re the one pretending. Your insistence that it’s not an ID will be small comfort when someone fakes yours and used it to identify themselves as you to steal your identity.

Again. The fact that it’s a terrible form of ID is my point. It being a bad ID doesn’t mean it’s not one.

Edit: I copy/pasted my point about W.Va from one thread to another. Both say, as the law does, that it identifies you. The mail ties the identified person to an address authorized for a license (i.e. an address in the state). It’s authn vs authz.

What places requiring government-issued photo ID will accept a social security card? Sure, you can social engineer lots of things, but I'm very skeptical that presenting a social security card in place of a driver's license or passport will generally pass muster.

Though don't actually know as I haven't had one in decades.

You added an artificial constraint by specifying photo ID. I never claimed that a social security card is a photo ID because clearly it isn’t.

You do have one, or if you insist you were issued one, you just don’t possess it.

Any place requesting a government issued ID expects a photo ID.

At one point the lifelock guy had something like 200 W.Va licenses since in the mid-aughts they didn’t actually check to see if that SSN had a license already.

W.Va license gets you a passport. Passport gets you anything you want.

The only thing standing between you and full-blown has-a-passport identity theft is your Social Security Card.

Edit: You can intuitively prove that everywhere doesn’t require a photo ID because some piece of ID has to come first.

I lost my SSN card many years ago, and have not needed it to do typical things like vote, work, travel in USA and out of USA, start businesses, and file lawsuits. It's irrelevant.

The fact that you don’t use yours doesn’t make the thing you lost not an ID. If you lose your house key and always go in through the garage, the key you lost is still a key.

It’s not do you, it’s can you.

> If you are an American who has traveled internationally you have at least two distinct federally issued IDs, which can get out of sync and cause a huge headache.

What IDs are you referring to and what’s the headache? Presumably one ID is a passport. From your first sentence, I would assume the second ID is a social security number, but how does it become “out of sync” with a passport?

I know people who have spent literally years trying to correct misspellings and incorrect DOB issues with State and SSA.

Get a passport as a minor, change your name as an adult, realize SSA has your wrong bday, descend into bureaucracy hell as now both name and DOB don’t match.

As far as I can tell, birth certificates are issued by states and name changes are done through states, so it isn’t clear to me how a name is a federally issued ID or even an ID.

While I am sure the bureaucracy surrounding such discrepancies is enormous, I’m not for sure I understand how it relates to a discussion about national IDs. A passport is effectively an optional national ID, so none of these issues would be solved by a national ID.

Huh? A name is something which is on a federal ID, obviously it is not in and of itself a federal ID.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) issues IDs at the federal level, which are applied for using state or county issued birth certificates (as well as other ways). They sometimes make clerical errors. Those errors can propagate into other federal identity databases, such as the taxpayer record system operated by the Internal Revenue Service or the passport database operated by the Department of State.

The linkages between these systems are fragile or nonexistent, and if you are not careful about manually propagating changes between them you can end up in an inconsistent state which requires court action to rectify.

Passports are often used in lieu of social security cards because people are (correctly!) leery about using their SSN directly. I know people who have no intention of traveling internationally who have gotten passports because it’s extremely convenient to have a federally issued photo id.

It's worse than that. Birth certificates are issued at the country level.

I think you have a typo and mean county?

And I'm guessing it varies by state how local the issuing authority is given that counties are barely a thing in some locales.

Except where they aren’t.

SSN is optional on the passport application. I simply leave that line blank. In fact, getting an SSN is optional and voluntary.

If you change your name, which is somewhat common for women to do after marriage.

A name is not a government ID. And aside from mistakes, what is the issue? If you change your name, get a new passport.

When I got married and changed my name, I ended up having to spend a couple hours a day arguing at the passport office for three consecutive days. There are all kinds of arcane rules about it and the staff are not allowed to tell you what they are because they have been literally classified as state secrets since early in the Obama era. Plus, in my case they wouldn't even have a re-look at the rulebook to make sure they were getting it right, they were just going by memory.

Eventually I was able to track down the underlying laws that the relevant rules were based on and call the head office in Charleston who put things right, but who knows what would've happened had I not been a native English speaker.

Some of this may have changed, it looks like "8 FAM 403.1-4(D)" would've been the rule that I needed back when I did this, and it does not appear to be currently classified, but lots of other rules still are. Point is, it may not be as simple as you'd think to "just" get a new passport.

If you change your name, you need to update your information with social security and with the state department. That's how the two IDs can get out of sync. E.g. if someone was like "please bring your social security card and passport for verification" you could potentially have a name mis-match if you only updated your passport but didn't update your social security.

What scenario do you need to present both a passport and social security card? Those “three column” identification documents that I have seen always accept passports standalone.

The thing that will need to match is the name/DoB on your passport and your file with SSA. You will need them to match when you have to get the window attendant at SSA to help you figure out why your monthly social security check is wrong. Good luck proving you’re you when the records are 40 years old and 6 states away.

For renewing a driver's license to a RealID-compliant driver's license I did need more than a passport. But I think that was more of a state thing that required a utility bill to my address and maybe something else.

Ah, the ol' utility bill stuff. Lol. Such a pain at times, but I guess I understand for some things where people definitely try to skirt the system where they don't live where they say.

I have neglected to get my state's real ID since it requires me to go into a location, which are soul sucking. Luckily, my global entry card is a Real ID. It only took two years to get that one. And when I had to go in for that ID, they didn't even check my driver's license or passport for ID. They just took my picture and that was it. Pretty poor due diligence.

I actually usually use my Global Entry for TSA now. I lost my driver's license once at the airport and my Global Entry card is the federally-accepted ID I don't otherwise actually need.

Funnily enough I was able to fly without an ID when I lost my license--which was surprisingly hassle-free. But I had a hell of a time checking into my hotel.

Wait until you find out about the photo matching they do to true up license and Global Entry identity. Why have a human (who can be social engineered) do that in person when an algorithm can do it behind the scenes?

Well, I'm not disappointed that they actually did something. If it wasn't clear, I thought not checking was poor procedure, and I guess it makes sense it they have automated procedures. Still doesn't seem right to not have a human validate when it takes no extra time to do so.

Why do social security cards exist? I have no idea, but presumably they are required for something. They don’t contain your photo, so asking for photo identification seems like a totally valid follow up.

Because they were invented to not be an ID, even though they got turned into one almost immediately (because of course they did). Then people dug in their heels about making a better national ID because reasons. So we’ve trudged along with a terrible one instead.

Even if your SSN is not an ID, there must be a use for the card/number is my point. If there is a use for the SSN, then you still need an ID to verify that you are the person to whom the SSN belongs to. So you still need the name on the SSN card to match the name on your ID. So you need to keep your SSN in sync with your other IDs.

I haven't had an actual social security card for many decades since having a wallet stolen. And never needed it.

The fact that you do not physically possess your social security card does not mean that the federal government did not issue you one. So you Have it, you simply don’t have it on you.

You haven’t needed it since it’s such a bad ID that if you know the number you often don’t need to possess the paper.

I've never been asked to present the paper over multiple decades and have never bothered to try to get a replacement.

This is like saying I drive without taking my drivers license with me.

No. I'm not sure what the circumstances would be where I would have to present an actual social security card. Certainly never encountered one. Whereas it's easy to imagine circumstances where not having a driver's license on me could cause issues--even if it might technically not be required.

I used to use mine (plus my driver’s license) as my I-9 employment verification documents. Driver’s license for identity, SSN card for right to work.

You can also use a birth certificate to establish right to work, so yeah it wouldn’t be required.

Of course now I just use my passport, but like many Americans I didn’t have one for many years.

Fair enough. Not sure why I even carried my SSN card at that point. I've had a passport since I was around two years old.

You don’t need it because it’s so weak that people will accept that knowing the number is the same as having it.

They could mean name changes

Voting ID rules isn't just a state thing. On June 17, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states cannot require proof of citizenship in cases of voter registration for federal elections unless the state receives federal or court approval to do so. That is the feds have said the states can't just solve that for themselves.

The state I live in (Arizona) requires proof your presence is authorized to get state ID. If you are a citizen, that means proof of citizenship. But then loop back to supreme court decision above.

Edit: firstly, this is a distraction (i.e. a red herring) from the debate about national IDs. We have a national ID issue which needs to be fixed.

That ruling doubles down on it being a state thing by saying leave citizenship (which is a federal thing) out of it. If a state creates for itself a catch-22, that is the states fault and is therefore the states responsibility to fix.

Arizona needs to stop shirking it’s responsibility to its residents and come up with a solution to this problem, just like virtually every other state has.

What's the solution, though? I live in California, and my state-issued ID doesn't say anything about my US citizenship. When I registered to vote (online), I had to certify that I was eligible to vote. Yes, the penalties for lying are steep, but if the state can't verify if I'm lying or not, how will I get caught?

If SCOTUS says states can't require proof of citizenship for voter registration, how can they exclude non-citizens from voter rolls? The state hasn't created a catch-22; the federal judiciary has told the states that they effectively can't use citizenship as a requirement for voting.

I feel like I'm missing something here, because this can't be the state of things.

> We have a national ID issue which needs to be fixed.

What issue is this? Why do we need a national ID? What purpose would one serve? Plenty of Americans go through their lives just fine without any sort of federally-issued ID. Pretty much all you have to do is never travel outside the US, and many Americans don't.

> What purpose would one serve?

Aside from the hundreds of other cost-and-convenience reasons, eliminating the SSN (and associated fraud) would be easily worth it on its own.

Even if it were true that plenty of people get through life without a federal ID, that doesn’t mean all do. As I have said other places in this thread, the rickety machinery of federal identity replication grinds up plenty of people.

> We have a national ID issue which needs to be fixed.

What is that issue? It is not apparent to me that REAL ID solves a real problem.

Who said anything about REALID solving the national ID problem? We need to replace SSNs with a modern identity system.

Ok. Why do you say so? What would be the benefit?

I don’t believe for one second that you don’t already know, but ok here you go.

https://www.ssa.gov/fraud/#:~:text=How%20to%20report%20fraud....

Thanks for the reference. Your idea is that maintaining an official national database of people, linked to driver's licenses, would make it harder to commit fraud; is that right?

This was a genuine question. It's not obvious to me why it would matter which primary key people used in their customer databases, but fraud is also not something I worry about or really even think about.

Nope. As I’ve said other places in this thread we should replace the social security card and number with a modern identity system.

Currently your SSN is your client secret, but it’s a terrible one and we should replace it with a more robust secret. I shouldn’t be able to steal your identity by knowing a short number with minimal entropy.

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