National Identity Systems in the Fourth Dimension

When you’re doing technology policy, it helps to know what you’re talking about. That could be a derisive line aimed at the many elected officials, regulators, commentators, and other experts who carry on quite nicely all the same. But what I really mean is a little different: Definitions bring issues into focus. Knowing what the thing is that you’re talking about helps identify real problems, and it creates pathways from problems to genuine solutions. That’s a challenge in technology policy, in which innovations bring changes in organizational practices and consumer demands, new risks, new rewards, and new problems that call for new solutions.

So some years ago, I sought to sharpen the debate around national ID systems by putting together a definition of what a national ID system is. As Congress briefly considered a bill to revive the still-moribund REAL ID Act, I wrote a blog post offering up a definition. I still think it’s good and have used it in other writings. To define national identity systems, I wrote:

First, it is national. That is, it is intended to be used throughout the country, and to be nationally uniform in its key elements. REAL ID and PASS ID have the exact same purpose—to create a nationally uniform identity system.

Second, its possession or use is either practically or legally required. A card or system that is one of many options for proving identity or other information is not a national ID if people can decline to use it and still easily access goods, services, or infrastructure. But if law or regulation make it very difficult to avoid carrying or using a card, this presses it into the national ID category.

. . .

The final ‘element’ of a national ID is that it is used for identification. A national ID card or system shows that a physical person identified previously to a government is the one presenting him‐ or herself on later occasions.

With identity systems springing up all over, it’s useful to know which are concerning and which are safe to embrace. I’m a fairly consistent opponent of the REAL ID Act. (In 2007, my AEI colleague Norman J. Ornstein wrote a good piece highlighting its sloppy origins.) But surely not every identity system is to be avoided. There are many benefits on offer from well-designed systems, including convenience, security, and lower costs for goods and services.

Take attending sporting events. Major League Baseball’s (MLB) “Go-Ahead Entry” launched this week, a ticketless entry system based on facial recognition. Phillies fans now may access their ballpark without the inconvenience of carrying a ticket or pulling out their phones to scan in a digital one.

“Enrollment in Go-Ahead Entry is voluntary,” said MLB in one news report. “Cameras will [scan] users’ faces to ‘create a unique numerical token.’ The facial scans will be immediately deleted afterwards and only the unique numerical token will be stored and associated with the user’s MLB account, officials said.”

That sounds good. The data destruction makes it more privacy-protective than it otherwise would be. Should we all move to Philly to gather a little of that convenience while cheering on the Phillies’ late-season rise?

There’s a problem with that plan, and it’s not just the upcoming three-game stand against the equally hungry Milwaukee Brewers. The problem is that policies can change.

A couple of years ago, I issued words of caution about Worldcoin, the plan to distribute cryptocurrency as one might in a universal basic income program. The Worldcoin system uses iris scans collected by a device called the “Orb” to administer payouts. It has some privacy protections, but it is hard to protect against future changes that undermine them, as I previously noted:

The global infrastructure for machine-biometric tracking made popular for WorldCoin distribution could be repurposed to all kinds of tracking and control. The Worldcoin identifier, which must be shared widely to work, could become the new global social security number—a powerful tool with good uses, but also profoundly bad ones.

MLB’s Go-Ahead Entry seems worlds apart from Worldcoin. But from the moment it extends to paying for peanuts and Cracker Jacks, it could start to morph into a system later to be co-opted into tracking and control. It will be national, it is for identification, and all it takes is for some national emergency or fervor to produce legislation that makes it practically or legally required to access goods, services, or infrastructure of all kinds.

Innocuous identity systems like Go-Ahead Entry pose risks along the fourth dimension: time. I’ll stick with biometric-free baseball tickets.