Promise of National ID Sytems

Soon after reading the book Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani, one of the founders of Infosys, I learned that the author's proposal for a form of identification mechanism for individual citizens had been accepted by the government. In the book, he mentions that the absence of an identification document for most Indian citizens leads to a lot of fraud in government assistance for social programmes. It is understandable that a technology solution to this would reduce cost and ensure cost effective delivery of the services to deserving people. While reading that book, it immediately came to my mind that the retention of all sets of data on individuals has implications for their rights and their relationship to governments.

The Republic of South Africa has also commenced a citizen registration system mentioned here by its Minister for Home Affairs. In that piece, it is argued that there is the need to consolidate all registration and identification documents in the form of a smart card that would enable citizens to be registered for voting, driving and other interactions with the state. Needless to mention, my libertarian instincts tell me that this endeavor is not only bad for liberty but also technically unsound. To start with, the consolidation of all forms of identification under a single smart card may seem smart but simply shows that an individual is more vulnerable because a large amount of data is available in one place. Secondly, I see the tendency for well-meaning state officials to overstate the power of technology in the statement that this card is absolutely secure and cannot be breached. To my mind, that is such a preposterous statement that can only have been made up or used by the firm that is marketing this system to governments that would not care to audit that system.  

So to add my conclusion, I am certain that the quest to make identification of individuals may have some social value. What I am less certain of is whether it needs to be in form of governments collecting and maintaining a lot of data for individuals in one place. Now, the technology savvy thief knows which database to breach and find out more than they should about some citizens.