The
immigration reform measure the Senate
began debating yesterday
would create a
national biometric database of virtually
every adult in the U.S., in what privacy
groups fear could be the first step to a
ubiquitous national identification
system.
Buried in
the more than 800 pages of the
bipartisan legislation (.pdf)
is
language mandating the creation of the
innocuously-named “photo tool,” a
massive federal database administered by
the Department of Homeland Security and
containing names, ages, Social Security
numbers and photographs of everyone in
the country with a driver’s license or
other state-issued photo ID.
Employers would
be obliged to look up every new hire in
the database to verify that they match
their photo.
This piece
of the Border Security, Economic
Opportunity, and Immigration
Modernization Act is aimed at curbing
employment of undocumented immigrants.
But
privacy advocates fear the inevitable
mission creep, ending with the proof of
self being required at polling places,
to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank
account, acquire credit, board a plane
or even attend a sporting event or log
on the internet. Think of it as a
government version of Foursquare, with
Big Brother cataloging every check-in.
“It starts to
change the relationship between the
citizen and state, you do have to get
permission to do things,”
said Chris Calabrese, a
congressional lobbyist with the American
Civil Liberties Union.
“More fundamentally, it could be the
start of keeping a record of all
things.”
For now, the legislation
allows the database to be used solely
for employment purposes. But
historically such limitations don’t
last. The Social Security card, for
example, was created to track your
government retirement benefits. Now you
need it to purchase health insurance.
David Bier,
an analyst with the Competitive
Enterprise Institute, agrees with the
ACLU’s fears. “The most worrying aspect
is that
this creates a principle of permission
basically to do certain activities and
it can be used to restrict activities,”
he said. “It’s like a national ID system
without the card.”
