National ID Cards
The Issue
In
late 2002 and as recently as July 2003, Denis Coderre,
the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, has advanced a proposal
that by
2005, Canada have a national identification card system in place. The
proposal
sparked a large-scale debate throughout the country.
The concept of a national ID
card system is not new
in the world. During World War II, several colonial governments
instituted
national ID documents that were used internally as identification
papers. With
advances in technology, national ID cards were revisited as a way to
reduce
fraud and increase security. Today, countries such as Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Hong Kong, Italy, and Israel have national ID card systems of
some kind.
The purposes and uses of the
cards vary dramatically.
In some countries, the cards are needed only to travel abroad, while in
others,
they are needed to travel within the country as well. The information
contained
on the card can also vary. Some cards list country of origin and
citizenship.
In some cases, race or tribal affiliation has been listed on the cards
as well.
This happened in South
Africa during the
Apartheid government. It also happened in Rwanda in southeastern Africa. In 1994, Rwanda experienced a
devastating war, mostly between two tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis.
As many
as one million people were killed in three months and it is estimated
that a
third of the world’s Tutsi population was killed. Hutu militia at
checkpoints
asked to see the national ID cards. There are reports that people
identified as
Tutsi were killed on the spot.
In Canada, the Minister’s proposal was the first of
its kind.
However, there have been issues with similar themes on both a
provincial and
federal level throughout the years. For example, the use of Social
Insurance
Numbers (SIN) highlights some of the concerns raised by civil
libertarians
surrounding national ID cards. SIN numbers were only to be used in very
specific situations; however, there has been an expansion of the uses
and the
requests for SIN numbers as a form of identification. Banks, credit
agencies,
and other institutions have been known to require SINs as a form of
identification. Another example came in 1997 when the City of Toronto officials suggested
using a fingerprint scanning system for those receiving welfare
benefits.
Canada has had one very similar experience where an
agency
of the Government attempted to consolidate considerable information in
one
location. In May 2000, the Federal Privacy Commissioner, in his annual
report,
revealed that Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) had compiled a
master
database of information on 33.7 million Canadians, living and dead. The
database contained information dealing with taxes, employment history,
health
and medical records, travel, ethnicity, citizenship, education, marital
and
family status, disabilities, and languages. The database, called the
Longitudinal Labour Force File, was put together with information from
HRDC,
CCRA, and other departments and was intended to monitor the
effectiveness of Canada’s social programs. When
the Commissioner issued his report, the public outcry against this
master
database was enormous; so much so that Human Resource Minister Jane
Stewart
announced the dismantling of the database within two weeks.
In view of the public outcry, to
what extent is it
likely that the government will again initiate any kind of master
database? On
the other hand, have the atrocities of September 11, 2001 created a new
receptivity to such intrusive measures?
The
Minister’s Proposal
According to Minister Coderre a
national ID card
would be a tool that would enable cardholders to prove they were who
they said
they were.
The card would provide this
certainty because of the
technology used in the card. Biometric recognition information of some
type
would be encrypted and accessible through the information on the card.
The card
would contain a photo of the holder, name and address, and then an
electronic
copy of the holder’s thumbprint, retinal scan, palm print, or some
other
personal identification mechanism. This personal identification
information
would, according to the proposal, be encrypted in some manner, to
protect the
holder’s privacy and to reduce identity theft and fraud. The
information might
be connected to a national database. According to the Minister, the
cards would
be voluntary, meaning there would be no requirement for people to carry
or
possibly even possess the cards.
In the initial proposal, the
card would only be
needed for travel outside of Canada, and would not be needed as a form of
“internal passport.”
This led many to question why the card was needed, because it would
serve a
similar function as passports. According to Minister Coderre, the card
would
save time at border crossing and would be more reliable than passports.
Minister Coderre stated that one
of the most pressing
needs for a national ID card was to increase ease of border crossing to
the U.S. Since the terrorist
attacks in the U.S.
in 2001, border security has tightened in the U.S. There have been reports that
Canadians of Middle Eastern origin have been detained at the border.
According
to the Minister’s proposal, only Canadian citizens would have the card,
therefore easing border crossings for Canadian citizens because the
card would
be proof of citizenship. Sources in the Minister’s office have
indicated that
country of origin would not be included on the card. However, even if
the card
did not contain that information, U.S. border patrol agents could still inquire
into people’s
place of birth when they attempted to enter the U.S.
In speeches given after the
proposal, Minister
Coderre stated that he was committed to ensuring the privacy of
Canadians and
that privacy issues were a top concern in the debate surrounding ID
cards. He
also stated that law enforcement officials would not use the cards as a
way of
harassing individuals. He stated that the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms would
continue to protect Canadians from unreasonable searches and seizures.
He stated
that police could not now randomly stop people and ask for
identification and
that the presence of a card would not give them that power. However,
his
responses have not succeeded in allaying the fears of civil
libertarians.
The Debate
Several reasons have been
proposed to justify the
need for national ID cards. These include ease of border crossing into
the U.S., the reduction of
identity theft and fraud, and a reduction of illegal immigration and
terrorism.
However, there is little information to show that national ID cards
would in
fact achieve any of those goals.
Morris Manning, a constitutional
lawyer, has warned
that national ID cards could violate the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms. He
stated that, in his opinion, “if you have to produce a card to buy a
car, to
get on a plane, to travel across the country or even to walk the
streets of
Canada, then I believe we have changed from a free to an unfree
society.”
Opponents of national ID cards
argue that the cards
would be expensive to implement and that the information contained in
the cards
would not be secure. If the cards were connected to a national
database, that
could increase identity theft options because all sorts of personal
information
would be centralized, thereby giving hackers a one stop opportunity to
access a
lot of vital information. Proponents of the cards claim that cards will
reduce
identity theft because the cards will allow the holders to prove they
are who
they claim to be. However, it has been argued that the cards are still
only as
good as the underlying information and that false birth certificates or
passports will continue to lead to false identities, now in the form of
ID
cards.
In addition, the concept of
having all the
information in one place raises concerns. The government has not been
clear as
to what information will be accessible through the card. Will it
include health
records? If so, will border patrol agents have access to such
information, or
will the information accessed be limited to the function of the
official
checking the documents? These are some questions that need to be
addressed. The
concerns that were raised when the HRDC database came to light are
still valid
and Ottawa needs to provide clear
guidelines.
The government has stated that
before proposals and
bills are presented, a national debate should be held. Minister Coderre
has
stated that U.S. constitutional lawyer
Alan Dershowitz (http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/facdir.php?id=12)
will lead a conference to discuss the issue in October 2003. However,
Mr. Dershowitz
has publicly supported the use of a national ID card in the U.S
(http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/31/rec.national.id.cards/) and
therefore, his
presence at the conference seems to indicate that the government may
have
predetermined the outcome.
National ID cards could also
suffer from “function
creep.” This means that although the cards are designed with one
specific
purpose in mind, they may come to be used for more purposes than
intended. For
example, in the United
States, social
security numbers (SSNs) were designed for use only
with certain government benefits. Today, however, SSNs, and to some
extent SINs
in Canada, are used routinely in
banking, education, and credit applications. Although technically these
private
industries do not have legal entitlement to such information it has
become
commonplace and people assume their SSN is required in order to access
those
services. There is also a concern about who will be able to access the
information available on the national ID card. Morris Manning has
argued that
the access to the information will be much greater than just the
Canadian
government. “If it goes to the RCMP, it will go to the FBI. Then it
will go to
Interpol, and if it goes to Interpol it will be disseminated around the
world,”
Manning said.
There is also concern that
national ID cards could
fuel racial profiling. Research on the use of national ID cards in Europe has shown that the police
disproportionately stopped ethnic minorities for identity checks. Even
though
the identity cards were voluntary (meaning that people were not
required to
carry them), law enforcement officials might be more suspicious of
those who do
not carry them. However, it could be argued that mandatory national ID
cards
could help reduce racial profiling because the police would have access
to the
same information on all people, regardless of race.
National
ID cards have sparked a huge debate in Canada. Minister Coderre
presented several arguments in favour of the cards. However, the press
coverage
and editorials printed since the issuance of the proposal have tended
to be
against the concept of a national ID card system. It is true that
certain
information likely available on a national ID card is currently
available on
existing identification or databases. However, centralizing and
coordinating
such information brings with it both potential benefits and perils.
Privacy
activists are concerned that the possible benefits of a national ID
card are
outweighed by the risk of function creep, security breaches, misuse and
other
unintended or unforeseen consequences.
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