National ID Card Scheme To Be Run By Big Data

WASHINGTON, DC (11 January 2007). The Department of Homeland Security plans to outsource REAL ID implementation to third-party data aggregators, according to official DHS documents.

The Department of Homeland Security has finished their proposed regulations for implementing the Real ID Act and has sent them to the Office of Management and Budget for approval. The publication of DHS's REAL ID regulations will follow shortly. The compliance guidelines are almost one year overdue.

According to a still-secret several hundred-page dossier sent last week by DHS to the Office of Management and Budget, DHS considered three ways to implement the REAL ID Act:

* Plan A: Order the individual states to find a way of communicating data to one another. This idea was given short shrift by DHS, who dismissed it out of hand.
* Plan B: Have DHS build a centralized database for the states to query before issuing REAL ID-compliant drivers licenses. This idea was also rejected.
* Plan C: Have a private data aggregator act as the central database. This is the plan advocated by DHS. The plan calls for the outsourcing of all drivers license and ID card checks to a private corporation, who would then charge the states for each check performed. DHS head Michael Chertoff personally ordered this option to be chosen, according to a senior administration source.

What does this all mean? Quite simply, this is the outsourcing of our Constitutional rights. It means that all privacy protections on our drivers licence data will be removed once the DMV sends your data to the private corporation.

If it's possible to create a scheme worse than a national ID card, this is it: a privatized National ID card. The citizens of every state will not only be at the mercy of a company like ChoicePoint or Acxiom to 'approve' their identity, but will have no privacy protections whatsoever on that data. Your sensitive drivers license data can be bought and sold along with everything else these companies sell, such as your credit information. The federal government can then gain access to this information without having to comply with any laws, such as the Privacy Act.

DHS is granting the right to control our identity to private industry. It will be Identity-Mart, Inc.: Always Low Privacy, Always.™ Congress needs to take immediate action to stop this travesty.