A National ID Card

India
December 22, 2006 7:58pm CST
Are national ID cards an invasion of privacy or a safety precaution?
1 person likes this
3 responses
@easwizz (203)
• United States
23 Dec 06
isnt your drivers licence like your ID card? its national.
1 person likes this
@swak1962 (129)
• United States
5 Jan 07
In the United States, the drivers license is issued by the state of where you live. The only national ID card is the Military ID card and/or the social security card. Now, the SS card has no picture or signature on it, while a military ID card does. In some parts of the country, two to three forms of ID are becoming necessary to confirm your identity. Some claims are that this is to reduce the threat of identity theft.
1 person likes this
@swak1962 (129)
• United States
23 Dec 06
Well, I'm not certain in how to respond to this, but one time in renewing my drivers liscence, I had to provide 3 forms of identification. My birth certificate, my high school transcript, and a bank account statement. For some reason, this gave me the impression that I was in Nazi Germany, where a gestapo agent could, at any moment, approach me and say "Papers, please!"
1 person likes this
@pumpkinjam (8539)
• United Kingdom
16 Jan 07
All in all, I think it is an uneccessary invasion of privacy. Theoretically, it will provide a single, simple form of photo ID which could be used in any circumstance. In practice, with only one piece of ID containing all of your personal information, it would make identity theft a lot easier because it's easier to take one thing and read off or connect the other information than it is to take 2 or 3 seperate pieces of information. I don't think it would work anyway because, apart from what I've already said, it would cost too much. There would be people who couldn't afford to pay for them and, therefore, would not be able to identify themselves which would mean that they wouldn't be able to do a lot of things that most people take for granted. I know how difficult it can be to do certain things because of a lack of ID. (I couldn't get a UK bank account a few years ago basically because I hadn't learnt to drive so I had no driving licence, I had never been abroad so I didn't have a passport, and I didn't have a job and therefore no money to get another form of photo ID card which, even then, would need to be signed by a "professional" which is fine assuming that everyone knows a professional) soif these national ID cards became compulsory, there would be an awful lot of people not being able to prove who they are as well as a lot more people committing identity theft.