May be a stupid question, but it occurred to me that when renewing official IDs, fingerprints are registered, and of course, there’s a clean shot of your face. Kinda makes me uncomfortable, since fascism seems to be on the rise pretty much everywhere. How do you guys deal with this? Necessary evil?
The American fear of a proper ID system is puzzling to me. It’s constant fear mongering of overreach by the man and not enough appreciation of the benefits. The first one is a self-updating voter registry that eliminates the process of registering or having to check on your registration to make sure you didn’t get knocked off for no good reason. All people need to update their home addresses when they move. Another benefit is - if implemented well of course - that everybody could have a 2FA-quality chip in their pocket to allow for many services to be done reasonably safely online. The dreaded lines of the DMV come to mind. Another benefit is you could prove very quickly who you are, especially if fingerprints are on the chip, to counter mistaken identity arrests that may or may not have been instigated by a so-called AI.
So the government knows everything about you, sure. But it’s not a one-sided deal. And frankly, even if the government did not have this information on you before it turned tyrannical, it would ID you as a possible malcontent in no time. Your data is already available for sale on various data broker sites.
I realize that me preaching the benefits of a proper ID system to the Americans in times of 47 and ICE raids is a bit wonky. I am not going to speculate if the self-updating voter registry could’ve prevented 47. And ICE under 47 might find its job “easier.” But from what I’ve read and heard they haven’t exactly been detail-oriented public servants. When the rule of law breaks down everybody gets effed. And so-called illegal immigrants also have phones and use the internet so their information was also available for sale before stable genius returned to the orange office.
Of course there are dangers that need to be addressed. Access to the database needs to be tighter than a sphincter and every query needs to be logged. Every system will be abused. Checks and balances need to be there, ideally with a right to find out who looked you up and for what reason for everyone. I’d prefer a system embedded in law over internet data brokers.
This is it. Yes, a registration/ID system can make the tasks of a tyrannical government slightly easier, but not having one didn’t exactly stop ICE raids. On the contrary, having such a system would make it much easier for legal immigrants to prove that they are legal and it could help them against illegal deportation due to misidentification.
And in any case the problem is the tyrannical government, not the ID system.
You make good points, but there have been moves recently to try to make “motor voter” systems (you register to vote automatically when you get your driver’s license) illegal in the US…
Why would people in the right mind bind the right to vote to a document that allows you to operate a vehicle on public roads anyways?
These laws provide a way to register to vote. Not the only way. Because, in the US, most adults have a drivers license, they are the default form of photo ID. Even people who don’t drive are most likely to get their photo ID from the DMV. (For those not in the US this probably seems weird and they are not wrong.)
Because the DMV has become the default issuer of photo IDs in the US, and because there are requirements to update one’s address when moving, the DMV knows where everyone lives (at least for the most part).
These laws then say “hey, your ID says you live at 123 Main St, any town” would you like us to register you to vote there too? It’s not the only way to register to vote, someone can still register directly via a dedicated form, it’s just another way to register that makes it much easier for many people.
In practice, these laws massively increase voter registration numbers.
That’s great, I wasn’t aware of that.