Allen Richardson

National Identification Cards. What’s the Purpose?

There are many reasons why countries, small and large, are reviewing the needs for national identification cards.  Many of the reasons have to do with immigration, border control and some are simply economic.  When considering national identification cards for a country, it’s fairly simple to understand the perceived need to clearly identify someone’s nationality for reasons from employment to citizenship benefits.  Even when reviewing who should receive medical or any other service offered by a government to its citizens and to protect these services so they are not abused by individuals whose citizenship is with another country.

Many countries that are examining the possibilities for such needs are doing so because the only form of national identification that anyone has is a printed piece of paper.  These documents are simple to forge and do not have a picture or other identifiable marks that would indicate who it belongs to other than the holder.  Documents like these are easily stolen or duplicated by people in order to enter countries or receive citizenship benefits.  Simply controlling the cost and reducing the abuse of these types of services is economic reason enough to introduce a national photo identification card system.  Because of the needs mentioned here it’s clear that some of the requirements of ID cards would include biometric information from a simple photograph to the characteristics of the individual including height, eye color and sex.  Some countries have incorporated finger prints and even retinal scan information into the national ID cards as well as into the national database.

Some of the countries that are entertaining or beginning this process do not have an up to date account on its current residents or even census information on their citizens.  Implementing a national identification card into a country such as this allows for many other needed benefits, such as tracking the activity of its citizens when it comes to border crossings, criminal records, government employment history or military service.  Presently many of these countries have databases to track these items, but most are independent of each other.  Creating a national ID card would allow the merging of all of these databases into a common solution that would allow for a much simpler identification and review of an individual’s history.

As governments review these types of requirements, it has become in many cases a task for outsourcing. For many nations, undertaking the monumental feat of photographing, capturing information and providing ID cards to every citizen is too large for governments to handle efficiently.  There have been a few companies providing solutions for nations and one of them is FullIdentity.com.  This organization has been providing photo identification cards for individuals for about seven years and have created solutions that incorporate much more than simply providing cards.  In many cases solutions have been developed for countries that are not only easy to implement but also provide an economic benefit for the countries implementing them.  Simply put, when outsourcing the identification card needs of a country to a provider such as FullIdentity.com, the costs are less expensive than they would be if a nation took on the burden of developing a solution internally.  Because of the discounted expense, the country can charge the citizens less for the ID cards than they would if the nation was passing the expense along directly to the resident.  This would still leave a financial margin that would be paid to the government.

Ultimately, when looking at the issue of implementing a national identification card system into a country from the prospective of the government, it is hard to find an economic reason not to move forward.  Yes, there are and will be advocates that claim that “big brother” is taking away our privacy and our rights.  And yes, privacy about our criminal records, border crossings, and military records is lost but shouldn’t these things be monitored by someone?  Shouldn’t a nation protect its citizenship benefits for just its citizens; or should it allow anyone to benefit from the government regardless of their own nationality?

Article Tags: National Identification, Identification Cards, Identification Card

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