Citizen identity cards have become a big deal in Europe. Currently 12 countries have E-ID programs and have enrolled over 160,000,000 citizens. By 2010 it is expected that this number will rise to over 450,000,000. (Source: epractice.eu, Eurostat, Wikipedia)
In nearly all of these cases, or countries, some form of identity card and/or Passports are compulsory. In some countries, such as Belgium and Germany, citizens are not required to carry them. In others they are. Belgians above the age of 12 are required to carry some means of identification at all time. People's Republic of China requires every citizen above the age of 16 to carry an identity card, and is now instituting biometric ID cards. The card will document data such as work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status, landlord's phone number and personal reproductive history. A number of countries do not have national identity cards. These include Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, India, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States.
There seem to be two fundamental approaches to identity: citizen-centric for access to services and identification for law enforcement, and security-centric to limit access to data/facilities and verify transactions. In the US we have gone down the security-centric route. But given the concerns over cyber warfare, terrorism, fraud and misuse of Government funds, crime, and failed responses to natural disasters one wonders if there are not cracks in wall of resistance to a US national ID card. Will we see a convergence of European style citizen identity with US style security?
