Hacker News Reader

Comment by rtkwe | Hacker News Reader

> To that sorry list, I would add medical providers' offices (doctors and dentists), all of which seem to request social security numbers for some reason on their patient intake forms, when all they should need is the patients' insurance information as printed on their insurance card.

Insurance information changes over time though so it's simpler to just request the government issued GUID and use that to make sure you're associating the patient files correctly.

I think the only real solution would be for smart cards to come back into vogue and assign everyone a unique key along with their SSN. Proofs of identity for things that matter ie loans and other financial work could then be secured without significantly interfering with it's use as a unique identifier in cases where it doesn't need to be secure. (As wrong as it is to use SSNs that way it's ingrained enough in interactions and systems that trying to cut that off would be a big pain.)

View on HN

Someone, somewhere, in US government needs to push for the same system Estonia uses for their national ID card.

https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-identity/id-card/

Yeah it's tricky because the US is a bit shy about national IDs for vague reasons that seem loosely associated with anti-authoritarian reasons and distrust of government. Sure we can't be forced to 'show us your papers' because they don't physically exist but the government knows who 99% of citizens are if they wanted to work at it even a bit and it's not like states are going to be the bastions of fighting back and they do have IDs pretty much everyone gets.

There is a significant percentage of the US population that believes any attempt at a new national ID is the mark of the beast from the biblical book of Revelations. I shit you not. These are the same people that would consider a war in the middle East to be a good thing, because it means Jesus is coming to usher in the millennial reign of heaven on Earth.

Indeed. No one cries foul on a passport or driver's license, but a national ID card is so draconian /s

Maybe if you converted passports to smartcards, and then slowly turned it into a national ID you could make this work.

> No one cries foul on a passport or driver's license, but a national ID card is so draconian

Fair point, but it's worth noting that lots of people don't have either document. Hence, say, the voter ID law fight: many people genuinely have no standard identity document except SSN.

One other aside is that driver's licenses are a remarkably bad identification document. Even plenty of bars won't take out of state driver's licenses, or will outright declare real ones to be fake. And dealing with government offices, I've had several iterations of "that state's license ID has a different number of digits, so I can't use it in our system".

Yes, I agree entirely. Which is why the cost must be driven down for obtaining a national ID card, and you should be able to obtain one as easily as going to to a DMV. Someone in this thread suggesting using the postal service for such a task, which I would be in favor of with adequate controls in place for safeguarding the PII of citizens.

> One other aside is that driver's licenses are a remarkably bad identification document.

This is changing with REAL ID; all states are either compliant with new ID issuance and doc standards or have received an extension. https://www.dhs.gov/real-id

Yeah the only way I'd ever say election ID laws were ok and no discriminatory attempts to shape the electorate would be if it were accompanied by a) a massive expensive push to ensure everyone had and ID (mobile DMVs going and registering people who can't get out to an office, free licenses, etc) and automatic voter registration (because if you're going to say everyone needs to have this to vote I damn well be able to vote with just the ID).

> plenty of bars won't take out of state driver's licenses, or will outright declare real ones to be fake

Italians that have an id card predating electronic id are routinely bumped off American bars because to them it looks like it's just a piece of paper with a photo stitched on top. Yet, identity theft is a problem in the US and not in Italy...

In fact, even though that id card actually is relatively easy to forget, it does have some watermarks and special government stamps. In fact, it's probably easier to fake an electronic id card with a piece of plastic, if you know no one is going to try using the smartcard functionality.

There is a passport card with a chip, but it is only usable at land crossings. Ostensibly because the world has agreed on what a passport is.

the US is a bit shy about national IDs for vague reasons that seem loosely associated with anti-authoritarian reasons and distrust of government.

It's called "history." And as they say, those who don't learn from it are doomed to repeat it.

There's really no evidence that the USG doesn't already have everything it needs to oppress $GROUP if it wants to.

No federal IDs did absolutely nothing to inhibit Japanese internment. The federal government has vast powers already.

But aren't social security numbers effectively being used as national IDs right now? The fact that that they suck just makes fraud easier.

I don't see how modern society can function without some form of universal authentication. Alternately, if you live in a forest and don't need or want to participate in the financial system, I'm all for making a hypothetical national ID opt-in.

SSNs aren't really an ID they're an ID number, without looking at other databases and traces left there's only really a name associated with each and no biometric data so there's no real way to confirm that the person you're looking at is actually the person assigned XXX-XX-XXXX.

Which is what makes it such a huge problem- they're treated as ID's whether they're supposed to or not. Regardless of original intent, regardless of what you or the government or anyone else says, they are treated as ID's by the vast majority of business and organizations. That's the whole point of this discussion and why it's such a problem.

States give access to their driver's license databases to federal authorities. Any safety you perceive due to the lack of a national ID system is an illusion.

A lot of opposition to national IDs is based in religion.

Funny thing is, in Canada, SSN analog is called SIN.

Social Insurance Number, for the curious.

I was unaware that King George III was such a proponent of national ID cards.

Those who over-apply historical lessons in an incorrect context may serve as a future historical lesson in mistakes made, though.

I’m quite certain the US government demands “show us your papers” of many individuals within 100 miles of the US border on a daily basis.

Only if you're an immigrant. If you're a US citizen, you don't need to provide any proof.

Well, actually you need to prove you are a citizen if you fit the profile of an immigrant within 100 miles of the border. And if you don't do so to their satisfaction the border patrol will detain you indefinitely. Yes, in America. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/immigration/2019/07/22/dalla...

If you state you are a US citizen, the onus is on them to prove you aren’t.

There is no law saying that Us citizens have to carry identification pricing they are citizens.

And yes, if they have reasonable suspicion that you’re lying, they can detain you.

Constitutional rights are as it relates to the fourth amendment are a bit fuzzy within 100 miles of the US border. Even as a citizen, you'll need to provide proof or sit in lockup until CBP is satisfied you belong in the country. The ability to provide oral attestation of citizenship was deprecated by the justice department many years ago.

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

How do you prove you don't need to provide proof? Or do the police have to prove that you do?

Nope if they think you should have proof and you don't you can be detained and there's no strict limits on how long you can be detained it's essentially till they're satisfied you've proven your citizenship.

I have thought for a long time now that the national postal system was particularly well suited to take up this task.

I'm Canadian though, so it's quite possible that this would be reasonable here and not in the U.S.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com