A VITAL tool in the fight against terrorism or a one-stop-shop for identity thieves? The 鈥淩eal ID鈥� bill that President Bush has only to sign will turn state-issued US driver鈥檚 licences into national ID cards. But it passed the Senate on 10 May without a word of debate.
Real ID, which was slipped into an emergency appropriations bill, stipulates that by 2008 all driver鈥檚 licences or equivalent ID must include a machine-readable name, a digitised photograph, address, social security number, a digitised birth certificate and signature. If you don鈥檛 have an ID card you won鈥檛 be allowed on planes, trains or buses, or in government buildings. The Department of Homeland Security is to decide what reading technology will be used. One possibility is RFID tags that can be read from a few metres away without you ever realising.
鈥淚f you don鈥檛 have an ID card you won鈥檛 be allowed on planes, trains or buses鈥�
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鈥淭his is a recipe for identity theft disaster,鈥� says Tim Sparapani, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, because it creates a single national database accessible by tens of thousands of people working for state and federal governments. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no way to secure that data.鈥�
