Proposal floated for North American ID card
By Sarah Staples
Local News - Thursday, July 08, 2004 @ 01:00
CanWest News Service
An influential organization representing U.S. and Canadian driversâ licence bureaus is developing a proposal for a de facto North American identity card: a biometric licence for 300 million people that could be fed through law enforcement databases to nab holders of multiple forged licences.
Such a card would require the creation of the largest database of biometric data in the world â potentially to include digital images of a personâs face or eye, or electronic fingerprints.
The move comes as Ontario becomes the latest Canadian province to signal it will tighten security on major pieces of identification: It has quietly just revealed plans to adopt biometric technology on health cards and driversâ licences.
A spokesman would not rule out the possibility of merging the two cards into a single âsmartâ ID even though a similar proposal by the previous Conservative regime was abandoned in 2002 after it was panned by privacy critics.
The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, a quasi-governmental body whose members are mainly state and provincial ministries of transportation, has finished the first stage of a multi-year evaluation to gauge whether a common biometric licence could be applied across association jurisdictions, including Canadian provinces.
A report by International Biometric Group, produced last January and released to association members in September 2003, reviewed available research on biometrics before concluding more study is needed to decide whether a North American identity card supported by a massive database of fingerprints, iris or facial scans is technically feasible.
Marked confidential and with an advisory it is âintended for dissemination within the association member jurisdiction community only,â the report, titled Phase I: Technical Capability of Biometric Systems to Perform 1:300 million Identification, was later posted on the associationâs website as an addendum to a status report on drivers licence security.
Although a decision would ultimately rest with lawmakers in the U.S. and Canada, the initiative is being fast-tracked at the highest levels of the association, according to a second report produced by Fischer Consulting Inc., which offers a detailed blueprint for further action.
The associationâs board of directors has voted to continue canvassing biometrics vendors for detailed technical advice on scaling a database so it could dwarf existing warehouses of personal information without sacrificing accuracy, according to the Fischer report.
Raj Nanavati, a partner with International Biometric Group, confirmed his company was contracted by the association to explore the feasibility of a North American licence designed to provide âa real background check that would identify criminals who apply for more than one licence under an alias.â
But Jason King, a spokesman for the Arlington, Va.-based organization, denied the association is reviewing options for a centralized North American licensing system. âI donât know what reports youâre reading and Iâm not certain what allâs in them, but you can take my word as gospel,â said King.
In Ontario, meanwhile, Joe Uzan, of the strategic procurement branch of the provinceâs Ministry of Transportation, said âeverything is open and on the table,â when asked if the province intends to design a combined ID card merging health and driverâs information.
A notice posted last week on the government tendering website, Merx, announces the ministries of transportation and health âwish to develop a strategy for new security measures for driver licence and health card issuance and identification security.â
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