8 Ways to Sunday

Tech giants Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft are working together to make the jobs of overbearing governments everywhere just a little bit easier. In late May HP rolled out the National Identity System, based on Microsoft’s .Net technologies. The system is designed to make implementation of, say, a national ID card much simpler. It appears from HP’s press release that NIS can be made to work with either biometric data such as fingerprints, or more traditional tracking mechanisms like bar codes. No doubt support for RFID, everyone’s favorite nascent Orwellian technology, can’t be far behind.

With the passage early this summer of the REAL ID Act — tucked sneakily into a sure-to-pass appropriations bill for the war effort — technology like this will soon be making its way into American wallets.

(Props: “Hot for Data,” by Annalee Newitz)

More Info

• InfoWorld and eWeek offer some additional details on the HP-Microsoft project
• Wikipedia article on the REAL ID Act
• A summary and analysis of the REAL ID Act (PDF format) compiled by the Congressional Research Service and made available to the public by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• FAQ: How REAL ID Will Affect You
• Security expert Bruce Schneier talks about why REAL ID is a really bad idea.
• This eWeek article discusses fears among some security experts that the enactment of REAL ID’s provisions could lead to skyrocketing identity theft in the United States.
• After the passage of REAL ID, Wired News ran an interesting follow-up that covers the politics of the bill’s passage and the continuing struggles of state governments against the legislation.
• FindLaw’s legal commentary section offers up Noah Leavitt’s “The REAL ID Act: How It Violates U.S. Treaty Obligations, Insults International Law, Undermines Our Security, and Betrays Eleanor Roosevelt’s Legacy.” When a relatively stodgy site like FindLaw offers up an article title worthy of MoveOn.org, one should pay attention.