Also USA:
> The entire population of Afghanistan was biometrically catalogued - supported by the German Bundeswehr. The motivation for this systematic collection of fingerprints, irises, faces and DNA was to enable the distinction between good and bad people. Programs such as the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) were designed to identify known criminals, as well as local collaborators or Afghan security forces, at any time.
I'm far more concerned about the Americans, many here, who's knee jerk reaction is to engage in all sorts of mental gymnastics to give the government the undeserved benefit of the doubt and minimize the significance when these things come to light. If I wanted to give them the same undeserved benefit of the doubt they give government I would say they are ignorant of the danger.
“I dont know why people are surprised the government is doing [x]… [insert minimization]”
You've taken it as something totally not what was the spirit of the thread. But sure, eliminating laws that make victimless crimes a possibility seems like a good idea. Have fun getting that to happen.
The exact same thing can be said of your reframing of "physical harm" to be "violence" exclusively. You've clearly never debated someone from the voluntarism persuasion, because otherwise you'd know about the concept of externalities. But here is your chance to shine: will you acknowledge the fact that industrial pollution causes physical harm and that your unnecessary reframing creates that blind spot, or will you double down and hamfistedly attempt broaden the definition of "violence" to include pollution (and a thousand other things I could follow up with)?
Some countries require fingerprints for passports.
I'm not sure why all of this is a big deal?
Social security numbers (or cards) are not ID, in any meaningful sense.
> And if you're a man your selective service number, too.
Also not an ID.
> Both are technically not mandatory, but the steps to avoid them are incredibly byzantine and lock you out of lots of social services.
“Immigrate to the US after age 25” isn’t that byzantine. And, actually, selective service registration is technically mandatory, during a narrow age band.
You can't board a flight with it because there's no photo, but it's still a near-universal way to ID each person residing in the US.
They are, pedantically, "an ID". Just like a UUID is an ID. They're just not the type of ID we're talking about: an ID that authenticates the identity of a human who possesses it.
Exactly. When we discuss “national ID” we are talking about an identification document: a tool that allows authenticating a person; an SSN doesn’t do that. It is an identifier, not an identification document.
(We do have a actual national IDs, but they aren’t universal or mandatory, either in theory or in practice, though they are required for certain purposes and will be soon for more, and are increasingly common. Passports, state-issued IDs meeting REAL ID standards, Enhanced Driver’s Licenses, etc.)
So will you, because your database is now bleeding red-hot PII across every query and foreign key. Chances are you'll now end up with a web interface that uses SSNs in its URLs.
Holy hell, how was this even considered?
> It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. [1]
Sources:
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Interstate_Family_Supp...
1 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2013....
Cedes control, which is a political and minor economic issue.
National ID was a core GOP platform issue post 911. It never happened because both extremes of the political spectrum are against it. Right wingers are into the mark of the beast stuff and see it as a tool of government tyranny. Left wing types see it as a way to disenfranchise voters and deny resources to marginalized people.
Both are right and wrong. So the status quo prevails.
which is funny since the GOP were so adamantly against a national ID when the Clintons tried to introduce it.
For “normal” people, it’s a non-issue. Once you get to the people who fall out of the funnel, it gets more complex. How do you keep ID current for a 95 year old in a nursing home? Or a kid who can’t get vital records documentation?
Compulsory federal ID is a weird issue that the extremes of political discourse agree on, and the moderates mildly support or meh.
A kid that can't get vital records is also going to have an issue with getting a state ID. So again, doesn't matter if state/national.
If this is provided free of charge wouldn't it actively enfranchise people who don't presently have ID?
It would also streamline lots of use cases that require ID. Various federal programs administered by states require that you authenticate people in different ways. The states spend millions to do a shitty job (driven by Fed requirements) for unemployment, social services, Medicaid, etc.
Second of all, the most common state ID is a drivers license. A federal ID would not replace the state's need to license drivers.
How do you know?
State motor vehicle orgs are revenue generators. ID operations are expensive and operationally risky.
A federal ID would put the states in the business of selling endorsements. A drivers license would be like a deer tag or fishing license - higher margin and lower overhead.
It would also enable online services and local/county/state government could significantly reduce workforce and other expenses.
The answer is that they'd have to rely on the federal government instead, and given the functional relationship between the states and the federal government, states just aren't going to voluntarily give up that power and trust them to do this for them. It is in the existential interest of the states to maintain as much power as they can, despite the associated cost.
Because state dmv compacts govern data exchange and DMVs are all about selling stickers, state programs don’t have access to the ID data they own, except for law enforcement purposes. Companies like id.me, experian, etc buy that data from states and the. sell it back. (usually do a shitty job at it to boot)
Sort of. The defence in America against a Taliban-style takeover is more in its decentralisation. From politics to financial records, the data are held in multiple spots, making an automated canvassing difficult. The downside of that decentralisation is a lot of corruption and fraud can go uncaught.
That's the people, not the government. Federal government has wanted it's cattle bran- I mean Federal ID for decades now.