Kathy Goodson Jonathan Collette May 12 2007 National ID Briefing Introduction The introduction of the Real ID act in 2002 threw the public and the media into a frenzy as they discussed the implications of a national identification system for the United States Would such a system prevent terrorism Would it lead to a gross invasion of privacy Would it allow the government to collect details of people s daily lives Or would it just be one more card to lose and one more number to remember in an increasingly indexed and identified society Would it stem the tide of illegal immigrants or would forgery make it easier for illegal immigrants to appear legitimate Such a novel concept everyone cried demands closer attention and study We are now in the fifth year of this controversy and there appears to be no end in sight Unfortunately the debate about national identification schemes faces a major roadblock There is little consensus on what a national identification system is the vital elements the optional add ons etc One paper published in support of Real ID alluded to a national ID which by definition must be presented to police on demand at any time One must then ask why a national ID system must have such a property In the absence of a widely accepted definition for national ID people getting involved in the debate invent their own assumptions and argue from them without articulating them In designing a national ID system many different building blocks could be included each carrying its own costs and benefits We hope to define some of these key building blocks and suggest how a national ID system could be designed without reliance on preconceived notions Basic Technical Building Blocks Tamper Resistant identification A physical form of identification which is difficult to copy create a duplicate of an already existing ID difficult to forge create an ID with a new combination of information resistant to fraudulent use using someone else s ID or using an expired or otherwise invalid ID and difficult to obtain Each of these aspects has its own impediments to achievement and whether perfect security in any of these senses can be achieved is certainly debatable This identification card we will assume it to be a card but there are certainly other forms possible will convey some minimal set of information including name address and birth date Difficult to copy As seen in the history of currency the elements that make a document hard to copy change over time They range from the use of rare materials to microprinting and holograms Difficult to forge Something that is difficult to copy will almost assuredly be difficult to forge In addition stricter resistance to forgery can be had by applying a transformation to data displayed on the card i e text that is rotated slightly or pictures which are pixellated according to a specific algorithm such that they are recognizable under scrutiny Further security can be had by encrypting the data stored on the card Difficult to use fraudulently the addition of pictures to many standard forms of ID is one move in this direction Additional approaches might include the use of biometric identifiers such as fingerprint retinal scan or DNA coding Difficult to obtain Today the Department of Motor Vehicles is engaged in such a fight against their reputation of poor customer service that they often feel obliged to speed through the process of issuing drivers licenses without thoroughly checking identity documents that applicants must present This makes drivers licenses easier to obtain practically than they are theoretically A secure system would have stringent requirements for proving one s identity before issuing would enforce document verification and have a way of dealing with lost cards that was comparable in strictness Standardized Machine Readable Data Current implementations of this form include cards with swipe strips for magnetic readers and cards with some form of RFID radiofrequency identification technologies built into them Some current forms of identification most notably drivers licenses have no consistent data format used across the nation Passports issued by the federal government have a standard form but only have only recently been made machine readable Unique Identifier A number or string which is assigned to one person and one person only May or may not convey any information about the individual in the way it is formulated the US Social Security Number not a unique identifier provides information about where a person was likely born Must have a wide addressing space to provide for current and future users Database Additional information about individuals linked to their national identifier and available to authorized users This may be a closed database containing limited information from federal records or an open database in which trusted parties such as health care professionals can add information Basic Policy Building Blocks As important as the technological decisions about the capabilities of a national identification system are decisions about the legitimate use of the system We focus on legislation of appropriate third party use Not utilized by the private sector Legislation prevents all use of information from the national identifier or protects it as is currently the case with SSNs including any potential unique identifiers Private sector use for identification authentication only Third parties would be able to ask for a person s identifier and use the information contained within but they would not be able to store any of the information Thus a business could not collect customer profiles or create their own database of information keyed on people s National ID numbers Authentication implies ensuring not only that a person is who she says she is but also ensuring that she is authorized for whatever action she is attempting whether it is entering a bar or renting an R rated movie or purchasing a gun or toxic substance No legislation on private sector use The private sector is able to use data from the National ID for their own purposes including storing that information and creating additional databases which may or may not be linked back to a national database Proposed National ID schemes in the United States In 2002 a bill standardizing state driver s license cards and databases known as The Driver s License Modernization Act was submitted to Congress The Electronic Frontier Foundation described the bill as follows Though it