Worker ID Card at Center of Immigration Plan: Via Wall Street Journal.

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card. [ Read more ... ]

"Your Papers, Please!" - Get Your Fingerprints Ready! Cross-Party Senate Alliance Pushing National ID Card: Via Lauren Weinstein's Blog.

Greetings. According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Senate immigration reform advocates Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham are proposing a mandatory biometric (e.g. fingerprint-based) National ID Card system, and are attempting to brush away privacy concerns as trivial and irrelevant.

Touted as "merely" a "right-to-work" card aimed at addressing illegal immigration concerns, there's simply no fast-talking around the fact that this plan will set in motion a massive national ID infrastructure that will ultimately penetrate every aspect of our lives. Anyone who suggests otherwise is -- sorry to say -- either a liar or a fool. [ Read more ... ]

REAL ID is Punted Again: Via CDT - Center for Democracy & Technology..

DHS pushed back the December 31 deadline for REAL ID compliance until May 11, 2011  providing (at least in theory) the 46 states that have not yet improved driver's license standard more time to do so.  WIth PASS ID — the bill that would make REAL ID easier to comply with and add privacy protections — still not through the Senate, it is not terribly surprising that REAL ID is once again delayed.  CDT still worries that the climate will be different at the next deadline and the compromise that forces the hand of the states to act will not be nearly as privacy-friendly as PASS ID.

Read Original Article:(Via CDT - Center for Democracy & Technology..)

Move to National ID Cards Delayed: Via Threat Level.

The United States’ quest for a national identification database associated with driver’s licenses won’t be finished by year’s end.

The deadline was Dec. 31 for the states to have created what would be the largest identification database of its kind under the auspices of the Real ID program. The law also mandates uniform anti-counterfeiting standards for state driver’s licenses.

None of the states are in full compliance with the law, first adopted in 2005, requiring the states’ motor vehicle bureaus to obtain and internally scan and store personal information like Social Security cards and birth certificates for a national database, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. About half the states oppose the mandate, or have said they would never comply.

Beginning Jan.1, the law was supposed to have blocked anybody from boarding a plane using their driver’s license as ID if their resident state did not comport with the Real ID program. But the Department of Homeland Security is set to extend, for at least a year, the deadline of the Real ID program that has raised the ire of privacy advocates. [ Read more ... ]

Real ID Follies Continue with PASS ID Waiting in the Wings: Via EFF.org Updates.

As 2009 draws to a close, we're inching ever deeper into the corner that Congress painted us into by passing Real ID under the table in 2005. (Recall that Real ID is the failed, Bush-era attempt to turn state drivers licenses into national ID cards by forcing states to collect and store licensee data in databases, and refusing to accept non-compliant IDs for federal purposes, like boarding a plane or entering a federal building.)

The official deadline for states to comply with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) final Real ID rule is December 31, 2009, and an estimated 36 states will not be in compliance by then, leading to some ambiguity for many citizens. For example, will residents of Montana be able to board planes in January 2010 with only a driver’s license (a state-supplied, technically non-compliant document) and without a passport (an identity document issued by the federal government)?

Past history strongly suggests that DHS will issue last-minute waivers to states that have not amped up their drivers licenses to adhere to Real ID. [ Read more ... ]

Dead Man Gets Passport - The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2009 : Via Foreign Policy.

Since 2007, the U.S. State Department has been issuing high-tech "e-passports," which contain computer chips carrying biometric data to prevent forgery. Unfortunately, according to a March report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), getting one of these supersecure passports under false pretenses isn't particularly difficult for anyone with even basic forgery skills.

A GAO investigator managed to obtain four genuine U.S. passports using fake names and fraudulent documents. [ Read more ... ]

FBI delves into DMV photos in search for fugitives: Via The Associated Press on Google.

RALEIGH, N.C. — In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes.

The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. Agents are eager to look for more criminals and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people who have done nothing wrong.

"Everybody's participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver's license," said Christopher Calabrese, an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union. [ Read more ... ]

OpenID Pilot Program to be Announced by US Government: Via ReadWriteWeb Hat Tip to LauraS .

Ten private companies, a number of US Government Federal Agencies primarily in the Health sector and the OpenID and Information Card Foundations will announce this morning in Washington DC the launch of a pilot program to allow members of the public to log in to participating government websites with their credentials from approved independent websites.

That's right - someday soon you'll be able to log in to the websites of the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Insititute of Health and other government agencies with your accounts from Google, Yahoo and similar services. Below we discuss the privacy protection steps being taken, the usability issues and the ultimate significance of this announcement. [ Read more ... ]

Concerns Surface About Some PASS ID Amendments: Via CDT - PolicyBeta.

Last Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee agreed on several amendments to the PASS ID bill [S. 1261] and sent the legislation on to the Senate.

Let’s take a look at some of the changes:

• Exceptions to the anti-skimming provision:

A key privacy protection we support in PASS ID restricts the collection and use of information scanned from the machine-readable zone on your driver’s license or ID card. However, in response to the concerns of retailers and other third party users of driver’s license information, the committee introduced an amendment that directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to issue regulations establishing exceptions to this anti-skimming provision. [ Read more ... ]

Congressmen: Pass ID Threatens Americans: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

It’s not every day that privacy advocates agree with this particular group of four congressmen. But in Tuesday’s Washington Post, Congressmen Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.) spoke out against PASS ID as a threat to our national security. We concur: PASS ID does present unnecessary risk, all while doing nothing to aid national security.

Unfortunately, once you get past the headline, our agreement pretty much ends. The four congressmen are actually supporters of the failed Real ID Act — Rep. Sensenbrenner is the act’s author. They oppose PASS ID because they feel it weakens some of Real ID’s more draconian requirements.But the PASS ID Act is no benign alternative. It exposes Americans to an increased risk of identity theft, endangers victims of domestic violence, and cuts off religious minorities and some legal immigrants from full participation in society. [ Read more ... ]

CDT Testifies on Reevaluating REAL ID Act: Via Center for Democracy and Technology.

CDT testified Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on reevaluating the REAL ID Act. CDT testified in support of the PASS ID Act, noting that it mitigates or corrects critical privacy and security flaws introduced by REAL ID, while still establishing minimum federal standards for the issuance of driver's licenses and ID cards. While the PASS ID Act does not address all flaws in the REAL ID program, merely repealing REAL ID does not address all of the underlying privacy and security risks posed by government identification programs, CDT said. PASS ID provides the opportunity to start building privacy guidance and protections into all state identification programs, addressing trends and issues that will exist regardless of REAL ID implementation.

Read Original Article (Via Center for Democracy and Technology.)

Tech.view: Have chip, will travel: Via The Economist.

A MONTH of tramping around Europe has given your correspondent a chance to see how effective the new e-passports are at border crossings. Between them, his family holds American, Japanese and British passports, each recently renewed. Unlike previous ones, the e-passports contain biometric data embedded in a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip, along with the usual mugshot and optical bar-code.

Although all new passports conform, more or less, to standards laid down by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, each country implements the requirements somewhat differently. The new American passport sets the gold standard. It has additional features built into it that make it especially hard to counterfeit. The Japanese passport runs a close second, while the British version comes a poor third. [ Read more ... ]

Study Proves that SSNs Are Terrible Authenticators: Via CDT - PolicyBeta.

Perhaps we finally have the last piece of evidence to help everyone admit that, in regards to the use of social security numbers as an authenticator, the emperor has no clothes.

The National Academy of Science today published a study from Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon University demonstrating that Social Security Numbers (SSNs) issued after 1988 can be predicted with relative ease if you have the person’s birth date and place of birth.  It seems that, in 1988, the Social Security Administration (SSA) started issuing the numbers sequentially. Given that fact, Acquisti was able to take death records published by the SSA and identify a possible range of SSNs that were issued to a person on any given birth date. If you are born in a smaller town, the odds are pretty high that Acquisti could get your SSN on the nose.  As this population ages, it will be even easier for anyone to do this. [ Read more ... ]

More on PASS ID: Strengthening Privacy Protections for REAL Progress: Via CDT - PolicyBeta.

Three weeks ago, the PASS ID Act [S. 1261] was introduced in an effort to move beyond the REAL ID stalemate that has dragged on for over three years. CDT supports PASS ID because it mitigates key privacy flaws in the REAL ID program and is a notable improvement over current law. While the privacy provisions in PASS ID can still be strengthened, the bill incorporates nearly all the privacy requirements that the last Congress’s REAL ID repeal act included [S. 717, 110th] and was even introduced by the same Senator, Daniel Akaka (D-HI).

Putting aside for a moment the question of whether repeal of REAL ID is a political possibility, it is important to realize that repeal is not necessarily better than REAL ID: [ Read more ... ]

Cyber Security Czar Front-Runner No Friend of Privacy: Via Wired: Threat Level.

Former Republican Congressman Tom Davis, reportedly President Barack Obama’s top candidate for cyber security czar, voted repeatedly to expand the government’s internet wiretapping powers, and helped author the now-troubled national identification law known as REAL ID.

Citing White House sources, Time magazine on Friday identified the the former head of the Government Reform Committee as the president’s number one candidate for the new position. Davis’ reputation as a tech-smart moderate who knows his way around D.C. makes him an attractive pick for the administration, the magazine reported.

But an examination of Davis’ record in Congress shows that he’s been on the wrong side of key privacy issues, including the controversial REAL ID Act, which aims to turn state driver’s licenses into a de facto national identification card linked by shared databases and strict federal authentication standards. [ Read more ... ]

Legal Analysis of Religious Exemptions for Photo Identification Requirements: Via Congressional Research Reports.

The 111th Congress has considered the issue of possible exemptions to federal photo identification requirements under the REAL ID Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-13). The REAL ID Act contains a number of provisions relating to improved security for drivers licenses and personal identification cards. The REAL ID Act also requires, without exemption, that a digital photograph appear on each document. Some have argued that an exemption should be provided for individuals with religious objections to the photograph requirement to comport with the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA, P.L. 103-141). The Free Exercise Clause prohibits Congress from enacting any law that prohibits the free exercise of religion, guaranteeing individuals the right to practice their religious beliefs without government interference. [ Read more ... ]

Lakewood E-Verify Ordinance: Via ACLU Alerts.

The Lakewood City Council is considering an ordinance that requires city participation in the federal E-Verify program, an error-prone database that will result in the firing of US citizens and others who are eligible to work in this country. [ Read more ... ]

Missouri Likely to Become 13th State to Reject REAL ID System: Via Privacy Lives.

If Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signs a bill recently passed by the state legislature, Missouri will become the 13th state to prohibit implementation of the REAL ID national identification system and the 23rd state to pass some form of anti-REAL ID legislation. The REAL ID Act of 2005 mandates that state driver’s licenses and ID cards follow federal technical standards and verification procedures issued by the Department of Homeland Security. (For more information on security problems with the system, you can read last month’s post about the future of the REAL ID program and a previous report (pdf) detailing my belief that the REAL ID system creates a fundamentally flawed national ID system and should be repealed.) [ Read more ... ]

Obama, Congress to revisit Real ID: Via stateline.org .

Proposed legislation being circulated on Capitol Hill would give states more time, flexibility and money to meet federal Real ID requirements.

For the nation’s more than 245 million drivers, the legislation would allow them to keep using their current driver’s licenses to board commercial flights or enter federal buildings for the foreseeable future. Under Real ID, residents of states that do not meet a checklist of license upgrades would be unable to use those licenses for federal purposes beginning in January.

The congressional proposal may have the backing of the Obama administration. [ Read more ... ]

Obama, Congress to revisit Real ID: Via PogoWasRIght - Privacy News Headlines.

Congress and the Obama administration are considering ceding key ground in a long-running battle between the federal government and the states over Real ID, the 4-year-old federal program that requires all states to start issuing more secure driver’s licenses by the end of the year.

Source - Stateline.org

Read Original Article:(Via PogoWasRIght - Privacy News Headlines.)

DHS Inspector General: Real ID, What a Waste.: Via Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security issued a report earlier this week entitled "DHS Unable to Figure Out What It’s Doing on Real ID; Unable to Provide Guidance to States." (PDF)

Alright that’s not the exact title, but honestly, we think that’s what they would have said if they weren’t constrained to speak in federal bureaucratese. You can tell because what they did say was pretty scathing. Here are a few tidbits (with a little editorial clarification from us): [ Read more ... ]

Bill restricts use of driver's license data: Via kfsm.com

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A Senate panel has passed a bill to restrict the transfer of fingerprint images and other data on state driver's licenses to "any other entity," including federal agencies.

Sen. Randy Brogdon, an Owasso Republican, wants to prevent the sharing of fingerprints and other images on driver's licenses with other state and federal agencies. He warned that some of the information may wind up in the files of foreign governments.

[...] [ Read more ... ]

Virginia’s General Assembly rejects REAL ID provisions: Via PogoWasRIght - Privacy News Headlines

The Virginia House and Senate have overwhelmingly passed legislation rejecting elements of the federal government’s Real ID law, which requires states to issue federally mandated drivers’ licenses or similar forms of identification that would become part of a national database.

The House approved Del. Robert Marshall’s, R-Prince William, bill 88-10 on Tuesday, and the Senate passed legislation from Ken Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax, 30-9.

Source - dcexaminer.com

Read Original Article ( Via PogoWasRIght - Privacy News Headlines. )

Use of federal database for ID checks hits some bumps: Via USATODAY.com

States are increasingly cracking down on illegal immigration by requiring companies to check their employees against a controversial Homeland Security Department database.

The state effort has sparked protests from businesses, immigrant advocates and civil libertarians, which say the checks could inaccurately flag legal residents as illegal immigrants. Companies typically have done the checks themselves by reviewing workers' documents, such as passports. [ Read more ... ]

Privacy Advisers Tell Government to Improve REAL ID, Border Search Policies: Via EFF.org Updates

A committee of privacy advisers has recommended that the government add vital privacy protections to two high profile and controversial homeland security efforts.

The Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee made a host of recommendations to the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary and acting privacy officer in a February 2 draft letter February 5 final letter, which has been posted on the DHS web site. [UPDATE: the February 2 draft letter has been removed from the DHS web site, but is available here.] Among the issues flagged for improvement, the committee highlighted the implementation of the REAL ID Act and handling of travelers' digital information during border searches. [ Read more ... ]