We already do have federal ID: our social security numbers. And if you're a man your selective service number, too. Both are technically not mandatory, but the steps to avoid them are incredibly byzantine and lock you out of lots of social services.
> We already do have federal ID: our social security numbers
Social security numbers (or cards) are not ID, in any meaningful sense.
> And if you're a man your selective service number, too.
Also not an ID.
> Both are technically not mandatory, but the steps to avoid them are incredibly byzantine and lock you out of lots of social services.
“Immigrate to the US after age 25” isn’t that byzantine. And, actually, selective service registration is technically mandatory, during a narrow age band.
Social security numbers are unique IDentifiers for almost all people (legally) living in the US. Their whole point is to uniquely identify each person in the country. Even if you immigrate to the US after 25 you'll be assigned an SSN after becoming a permanent resident.
You can't board a flight with it because there's no photo, but it's still a near-universal way to ID each person residing in the US.
Their point is to identify a unique taxpayer record or a unique social security recipient. They lack a photo, so their utility is limited in identifying a physical human being.
They are, pedantically, "an ID". Just like a UUID is an ID. They're just not the type of ID we're talking about: an ID that authenticates the identity of a human who possesses it.
> You can’t board a flight with it because there’s no photo
Exactly. When we discuss “national ID” we are talking about an identification document: a tool that allows authenticating a person; an SSN doesn’t do that. It is an identifier, not an identification document.
(We do have a actual national IDs, but they aren’t universal or mandatory, either in theory or in practice, though they are required for certain purposes and will be soon for more, and are increasingly common. Passports, state-issued IDs meeting REAL ID standards, Enhanced Driver’s Licenses, etc.)
SSN are supposed to be unique. They are not. If you try to use them as a unique identifier in a database, your customers/end users will be sorry. In the payroll app that I'm currently working on, 111111111 is used as a temporary number. Which ends up not being temporary enough.
So will you, because your database is now bleeding red-hot PII across every query and foreign key. Chances are you'll now end up with a web interface that uses SSNs in its URLs.
Working on my 3rd bachelors degree - in my early 50s - required me to provide my selective service registration number. Something I had not needed since the 1970s.
The status quo is that the states already have IDs that are exactly how they want them. There’s no practical benefit to them, and it’s a politically convenient argument for privacy rights and states rights.
Because it feeds into the "mark of the beast" thing. State legislators want to appeal to the fundamentalist crowd so they occasionally have to make noises to satisfy them. Since enough people in my state believe such a thing about Social Security numbers, there is a form that the DMV (who I used to work for) has for people who are against SSNs due to religious reasons (SSN required for driving & occupational licenses by Uniform Interstate Family Support Act [0]).
> It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. [1]
The states are fine with it, as it would make their lives easier and yield more federal dollars.
National ID was a core GOP platform issue post 911. It never happened because both extremes of the political spectrum are against it. Right wingers are into the mark of the beast stuff and see it as a tool of government tyranny. Left wing types see it as a way to disenfranchise voters and deny resources to marginalized people.
Both are right and wrong. So the status quo prevails.
For “normal” people, it’s a non-issue. Once you get to the people who fall out of the funnel, it gets more complex. How do you keep ID current for a 95 year old in a nursing home? Or a kid who can’t get vital records documentation?
Compulsory federal ID is a weird issue that the extremes
of political discourse agree on, and the moderates mildly support or meh.
Why does a 95 year old in a nursing home make it any different if it is a national ID vs state ID? I'd assume the 95yo no longer has a valid license, but at that point the state ID is issued in its place.
A kid that can't get vital records is also going to have an issue with getting a state ID. So again, doesn't matter if state/national.
It would get them out of the ID business, or yield federal dollars to be in that business.
It would also streamline lots of use cases that require ID. Various federal programs administered by states require that you authenticate people in different ways. The states spend millions to do a shitty job (driven by Fed requirements) for unemployment, social services, Medicaid, etc.
> First of all, they don't want to be out of the ID business.
How do you know?
State motor vehicle orgs are revenue generators. ID operations are expensive and operationally risky.
A federal ID would put the states in the business of selling endorsements. A drivers license would be like a deer tag or fishing license - higher margin and lower overhead.
It would also enable online services and local/county/state government could significantly reduce workforce and other expenses.
How would a state assign endorsements to an ID they do not maintain or control? How would they use an ID database they don't have?
The answer is that they'd have to rely on the federal government instead, and given the functional relationship between the states and the federal government, states just aren't going to voluntarily give up that power and trust them to do this for them. It is in the existential interest of the states to maintain as much power as they can, despite the associated cost.
Easy. Just validate the Federal id, probably at a higher trust level than they do today.
Because state dmv compacts govern data exchange and DMVs are all about selling stickers, state programs don’t have access to the ID data they own, except for law enforcement purposes. Companies like id.me, experian, etc buy that data from states and the. sell it back. (usually do a shitty job at it to boot)
Validating a federal ID would tell someone that I am who I say I am. A federal ID wouldn’t indicate whether I am qualified to drive a vehicle according to any state law.
