Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform

BY DAVID KRAVETS
05.10.13
6:30 AM




Illustration: National Institutes of Health



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.

“The Social Security number itself, it’s pretty ubiquitous in your life,” Calabrese said.

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.”

For the moment, the debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee is focused on the parameters of legalization for unauthorized immigrants, a border fence and legal immigration in the future.

The committee is scheduled to resume debate on the package Tuesday.

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World's biggest biometric ID scheme forges ahead

12 February 2012 Last updated at 19:47 ET

India to complete identity number database by 2014


The world's largest biometric identity exercise, which is taking place in India, is well on its way to reaching its target of half the country's population, reports the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder.

Jahangirpuri is one of the biggest slums in the Indian capital, Delhi, home mostly to rubbish pickers and daily wage labourers.

Today many of them are lined up outside a tiny, single-room office, waiting patiently.

As each one of them goes inside, two young men and women enter their details into a computer before they are photographed and their fingerprints and iris are scanned.

'Every nook and corner'

It's a process that's being repeated at similar centres around India.

For the past two years, the Indian government has been creating the world's largest and most sophisticated database of personal identities. It's part of an ambitious project to hand over a unique identification number (UID) to each of the country's 1.2bn people.

"From the time we began this centre, we've had hundreds of people come by every day," says Col Ravinder Kumar, who manages the Jahangirpuri UID centre.

Among those in the queue is Kamala, a daily wage labourer.

UID chairman Nandan Nilekani says one million are enrolling every day

It's people like her, the poorest of the poor, who are expected to benefit the most from the UID. They have no proper identity papers and therefore no access to services such as subsidised food rations, a phone connection, even a bank account.

"It's so difficult to get anything done without a proper identity," she says. "We're often forced to pay bribes to get subsidised grains or fuel.

"With the UID I hope things will improve - we can buy cheap food and I can help educate my children."

Since its launch in 2010, nearly 200 million UIDs have been generated. The goal is to cover half the population by 2014.

Nandan Nilekani, who used to head one of India's biggest IT companies, Infosys, is now the chairman of the UID project and gives a sense of the logistical scale of the operation.

"We are enrolling at the rate of one million a day. We have over 20,000 locations across the country where this is happening."

"Now we are confident that we have built a system to scale and it's just a question of widening the reach and taking it to every nook and corner."

Furious debate

It's in Jharkhand, 1,200km east of the capital and one of the country's poorest states, that you get a sense of the potential of the UID on the ground.

Villagers line up at the local council office to collect their wages under a flagship government rural employment programme.

Only this time, their pay is being handed out against their newly acquired UID numbers, after their fingerprints are verified.

"The estimate is that the government spends some $60bn each year on welfare programmes," says Rajesh Bansal, assistant director general at the UID headquarters.

Not all of this money reaches those it is meant for. Some of it is held up by red tape, siphoned by middlemen or simply lost due to corruption.

"It makes the system much more transparent because the UID ensures that only the intended beneficiary gets the money and the whole system can easily be monitored," says Mr Bansal.

The UID has also tied up with state-owned banks to enable migrant workers to transfer money from the cities to their families in the villages, using their UID numbers.
But the project has also sparked a furious debate.

There are concerns over its cost, implications for national security and fears that the data could be misused.

Nearly 200 million UIDs have already been issued

"You say you are going to cut out corruption and leakage. Who are the people who are going to control this? The assumption is that technology is neutral and cannot be manipulated," says Usha Ramanathan, an independent law researcher who has been campaigning against the UID.

"What technology does depends on who controls it. You are saying the whole system is corrupt, so let's centralise data and hand it over to the same people. What sense does that make?"

For now the governmenthas agreed to build in safeguards and the UID project is gathering pace.

Many see this as a potential game-changer in India, bringing the country's poorest citizens into the mainstream, reducing waste while ensuring federal welfare money reaches those who need it most.

If handled right, many believe it could change the face of India.


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Fingerprint technology to help feed India's poorest

4 July 2011 Last updated at 19:01 ET

By Rajini Vaidyanathan

Reporter, India Business Report, Chandigarh, India



WATCH: Critics of the smart card scheme say queues have increased since the card's introduction

Women are waiting in line in one of Chandigarh's slum areas, holding empty shopping bags ready to be filled with rice, wheat and sugar.

As each customer reaches the counter, they hand the shopkeeper a plastic card with their photograph on, then they're asked for something else - their fingerprints.

In order to buy any of the supplies from this government-run ration store, they need to place their fingers on a small credit-card-style machine.

Only once they get a match can their purchase go ahead.

The shoppers here in Chandigarh are part of a project that uses biometric smart cards to deliver food to the city's poorest.

In India, those living below the poverty line (BPL) or on lower incomes, are allowed to buy basic food staples such as rice, sugar and wheat at highly subsidised rates, at government-run Fair Price shops.

In most places, families are given paper "ration books" that record how much food has been purchased and by whom.

But this scheme in Chandigarh is doing away with the old system.

The credit card-sized biometric smart cards contain a 64kb microchip that stores the fingerprints, photograph and other personal details of the head of the family and at least two other members.

It can also store a record of the purchases made by every family - how much they have bought and at what price.

Those behind the scheme believe the technology will do away with fraud, and ensure food reaches the genuine recipients. Under the old paper system where little proof was needed to claim food, people could easily use someone else's card, say officials.

"It means only the person who is holding the smart card will get the food - no-one else can claim the food as theirs" says Bachan Singh, of Chandigarh's food and supplies department, which is administering the scheme.

"Everyone will get the proper quantity of food, at the proper price," he says.

"I like the smart cards a lot," says Usha, a mother of three young children who is waiting to buy food. "I lost my card recently and was able to get another one easily."

Usha works as a domestic maid and earns about 1,500 rupees a month ($33; £21). By that definition hers is a BPL family, and is entitled to up to 35kg of subsidised grains per month.

But Kunti Devi disagrees with Usha's assessment of the scheme. A widow, she earns 2,000 rupees ($44; £28) a month as a cleaner and has reported problems with the new scheme.

"The machine doesn't always read my fingerprints properly, sometimes they tell me to go away and come back later," she says.

"I also have to wait a long time in the queue, before it was much quicker."

One of the biggest challenges officials face is getting people to trust the new technology. Here in this slum area there are no computers or televisions - the idea of doing things electronically is alien to many.

Teething problems are evident in the scheme. During the time we visited, the machine broke down and led to an even longer queue of people waiting in the searing heat for their food. But government officials did turn up promptly to investigate.

Vinay Verma, who deals with the technical aspects of the machines, says some of the problems stem from the fact the vendors themselves are unfamiliar with the machines.

He says failure is often down to human error, such as the cable not being pushed in properly, or the cards not properly inserted.

The city has bold plans to register 200,000 families onto this scheme by September, so far only 5,000 have signed up to the cards.


"The government wants people to give their biometric data and fingerprints, and many people have a fear that this will be used in another way, so they are not coming up in numbers to give their data," says Surendra M Bhanot, from the Consumers Association of Chandigarh.

Mr Bhanot says many of the people the scheme is aimed at are illiterate and fear this biometric information could end up in the hands of the police.

An awareness drive is one way he believes this hurdle can be overcome.

Using this kind of technology to deliver rations is costing the Chandigarh authorities 44 crores and 66 lakhs rupees ($10m; £6.2m). None of this cost is picked up by the cardholder themselves.

The deployment of biometric smart cards to deliver rations is one way the government could meet its bold plans to ensure food rations reach the country's poorest. In its draft food-security bill it guarantees subsidised food grains to at least 90% of rural households and 50% of urban families.

New technology is one way it could deliver this - if the Chandigarh smart-card scheme is seen to be a success, it could be replicated across India.

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