Inspired to Serve
Heh, great photoshop work from the folks at the Voice for School Choice in SC.
Does the PASS ID Act Protect Privacy?
I’ve written about PASS ID here a couple of times before – first on whether or not it’s a national ID and, second, on the politics of this REAL ID revival bill. Now I’ll take a look at whether it fixes the privacy issues with REAL ID. Privacy is complicated. Buckle up.
The day the bill was introduced, the Center for Democracy and Technology issued a press release giving it a privacy stamp of approval.
“The PASS ID Act addresses most of the major privacy and security concerns with REAL ID,” said Ari Schwartz, Vice-President of CDT. The release cited four ways that PASS ID was an improvement over the bill it’s modeled on, REAL ID.
Interstate Data Sharing?
First, CDT said, PASS ID “[r]emoves the requirement that states ‘provide electronic access’ allowing every other state to search their motor vehicles records.” It’s technically true: The language from REAL ID directly requiring states to share information among themselves came out of PASS ID. But the requirements of the law will cause that information sharing to happen all the same.
Like REAL ID did, PASS ID would require states to confirm that “a person submitting an application for a driver’s license or identification card is terminating or has terminated any driver’s license or identification card” issued by another state.
How do you do that? You check the driver license databases of every other state. Maybe you do this by directly accessing other states’ databases; maybe you do this indirectly, through a “pointer system” or “hub.” But to confirm that you’re talking about the right person, you don’t just compare names. You compare names, addresses, pictures, and other biometrics.
Virginians’ Happiness Frustrates DMV
Showing off those pearly whites frustrates facial recognition software used by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, so DMV workers are instructing motorists not to smile for their driver license photos. It’s a story worthy of The Onion, but it’s apparently true.
Facial recognition is just another way that governments are looking to keep tabs on citizens and residents. The need for specific no-smiling instructions will recede over time as national ID systems facilitate government control and make life in America naturally unhappy.
Transparency and National Security Are Not in Tension
Penny-wise and pound-foolish. That is my take on the “balance between transparency and national security” President Obama claims to have struck with regard to photographs of wrongdoing at Abu Ghraib.
Taking it as a given that release of the photos would inflame enemies in Iraq and threaten our troops there, failing to release the photos will warm anti-American sentiment the world over for far longer as people assume that the U.S. is concealing far worse than what is already known.
Not lancing a boil is a way to avoid pain, but failing to lance that boil is potentially much more painful over the long haul. By not releasing the photos, President Obama protects troops today at a cost to more troops in the future.
The damage was done at Abu Ghraib. All that remains is to let sunlight heal the wounds or to let the infection continue to fester.
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