, SecurityFocus 2002-04-17
Distributing thousands of card readers, guarding against corrupt insiders, defending against fraudsters and hack attacks... Plans to create a national ID card are fraught with peril.
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If we tighten all this up and link a person's card and record, then invasion of that information becomes a significant issue.
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The most troubling such proposal for the privacy-conscious attendees at the conference, now in its 12th year, is an effort by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators to link identification databases in a nationwide computer network.
Panelist Deirdre Mulligan, who serves on the National Academy of Science Committee on Authentication Technologies and their Privacy Implications, charged that the AAMVAnet project is hurrying the nation down the path of a de facto national ID card without discussion of the potential problems of such a system.
"The committee report points out that the slide into a world where we have a national ID document is hastened by a national ID system," said Mulligan. "People who are pressing to make a national ID system have to make a compelling case as to what the goals are, and we have to make public reviews," says Mulligan.
But Jay Maxwell president and COO of the AAAMVAnet, speaking from the panel, said the driver's license project is intended to combat fraud and abuse -- not create a national ID card.
The project is simply seeking to develop methods of electronically verifying the authenticity of identification documents presented when applying for a license, documents like social security cards, immigrant identification cards and birth certificates.
Maxwell said it became "painfully obvious" that drivers licenses were used by terrorists to help their operation and this effort is part of a task force to help the state DMV "stop being an accomplice to fraud." According to Maxwell, people apply for multiple licenses and use false dcuments to obtain these credentials, says Maxwell. They also modify licenses, download counterfeit driver's IDs over the Web, and sometimes bribe DMV officials to issue false credentials.
Citing a recent opinion poll, Maxwell said that 77 percent of all Americans favor improvement in the drivers license system to stop fraud and abuse. Federal legislation has been proposed to make licenses into smart cards and Maxwell says his organization is evaluating state compacts working to develop model legislation for state DMV policies.
"We do not believe we are creating a national ID," said Maxwell. "Lots of people feel that we are further down the line than we are on this. We have identified high level problems."
Among the problems that Maxwell says have been identified: how to keep people from getting more than one license, how can internal fraud be detected on the system and how the system can be protected from external threats. "If we tighten all this up and link a person's card and record, then invasion of that information becomes a significant issue," says Maxwell.
Andrew Shulman, who works with the Privacy Foundation's Workplace Surveillance Project also spoke on the panel. He presented a case study in existing biometric machine readable IDs to illustrate potential problems in implementing a national ID system.
Shulman points out that State Department-issued border crossing cards for the border between U.S. and Mexico are probably the largest machine readable biometric ID cards issued by the federal government -- with four million cards in circulation. The cards have an optical strip with the owner's fingerprint and signature.
But Shulman notes that there is a six month delay for new cards -- which were introduced last October -- and says the INS does not have card readers, and is running into problems getting financing for the machines. He adds that such systems would require that each terminal download a watch list or a blackout list, a complicated process that takes years to resolve. "We don't have national ID until we have ubiquitous card readers who can actually read biometrics," says Shulman.
Shulman adds that proponents of national ID systems also have to ask what would happen if terrorists learn to spoof the system.
While Maxwell insists that driver's licenses are not a mandatory form of ID because not everyone drives, Mulligan notes that many people who do not drive still opt to apply for a non-driver ID from the DMV. "Living without a drivers license would be difficult," said Mulligan. "Even if something is voluntary, it might not be."
Mulligan also notes that if time and money and resources are invested in a national ID system, it would be difficult for policy makers to forbid other groups from using the data. "Function creep is a serious consideration," says Mulligan who adds that identity theft consequences become even more dire. "The consequences of everyone relying on a single form of ID may be greater if it is compromised."
