the real id project in the united states was cancelled, according to this article by american civil liberties union (aclu). as the article points out,
"real id poses serious privacy threats. the federally mandated ids would hold machine-readable data of every american. that information would be stored in a national database available to government employees at all levels, putting every american at risk of identity theft and security breaches.
ultimately, real id could pave the way for a society that tracks americans’ movements and warehouses personal information in centralized databases that are rife with errors and highly enticing to identity thieves. because real id promises to be such an integral part of our lives, from boarding a plane to opening a bank account to verifying your eligibility to work, a small glitch could have disastrous consequences."
i think this is really interesting. not because americans are standing against this id card that would basically expose their every single move, but because this is what we, in costa rica, are mandated to do once we turn 18.
our id card displays our full name, address, picture, signature, where we vote, birth place and date and a bar code that stores all this info as well as our fingerprints... in a nutshell, everything an identity thief needs! for us costa ricans, no id card means no chance of getting a job, getting a passport (which means that there's no way of getting in the united states), buying certain goods (car, house, to name some), creating your own company, opening a bank account, etc...
why did we let this happen?
it's time for a revolution! no more identity cards!
more info on the threats of identity cards can be found on realnightmare.org
Comments