@Chris C
>>"Don't you see the problem here? "The System" says you're logged in in the States and in the UK. Which is the real you, and how do you prove it? YOU know you're you. But how do you PROVE that you're you?"
Well, unless someone has *changed* my picture in the system, I look like me, I know much more personal information about me, I know hundreds of normal trustworthy people who can testify as to who I am. I have the keys to my residence and registered vehicle, the codes to my bank accounts, etc.
On the other hand, the person pretending to be me is stuffed, if the system identifies the duplication quickly enough for them to be caught, and it's unlikely to be worth their while trying to bluff their way out of the situation
It doesn't seem like a setup where there's actually much mileage in impersonating someone.
>>"As for people being able to frame you for a crime nowadays, yes, it can happen now. But do we really need to make it easier? If somebody wants my fingerprints, they need to be physically close to me at some point. Once my fingerprints go into a government computer system, they're accessible everywhere in the world. And then I get picked up for a crime in Seattle when I've never even ventured further than New York (or, for the UK readers, you'd get picked up for a crime in Scotland when you've never ventured outside Ireland). Someone like me, who's self-employed and lives alone, doesn't have the pleasure of an alibi 24/7, so I have no way to prove that I wasn't in Seattle."
First, you're assuming that fake fingerprints can be recreated from the stored data which would pass the most stringent examination (which is by no means certain).
Secondly, if someone's trying to frame you for a crime, they need to be fairly confident that you won't have an alibi (ie you won't use your ID card, you won't phone anyone, meet anyone, etc)
Doing that without keeping you under surveillance would be hard, and someone who was bothered enough to put you under surveillance could likely already collect sufficient evidence to frame you.
A *distant* framing seems even harder to pull off, since someone would need to know that you were lacking any kind of alibi for a substantial period of time, and hope that a complete lack of record of you travelling to the crime scene wouldn't be seen as a problem.
If anything, the quicker a fingerprint match can be done after a crime, the easier it should be for someone to provide an alibi, since even people they met briefly are likely to be more confident about times, etc. If someone was going to frame me, I'd rather the police were knocking on my door the next day than 6 months later when the people framing me give them a tip-off.
And as I said, if someone hates me enough to go to that trouble, they can already frame me or have me harmed or killed. Biometric ID cards don''t seem likely to make a significant difference in how easy it is to frame someone.
So yes, I think you are being paranoid about that aspect of ID cards.
>>"Remember, "identity" is nothing more than bits in a computer. So far we've only looked at it from the perspective of the database getting cracked and people's data being exposed. What about the far more serious problem of the database getting cracked and data being changed? Suddenly your ID card doesn't match the database. In fact, your data can't be found anywhere in the database. Therefore, you must be a terrorist."
So you're assuming that someone can make changes to the database (which is likely stored in multiple locations) without the dates of those changes being recorded.
Even if that's possible, the very first time that it's noticed (as when someone with a whole host of people who can vouch for their identity gets stopped for using has a non-forged card that matches them but doesn't match the database), various alarm bells would start ringing, and a 'stop!' would be issued for the person matching the changed data, who won't be able to prove they are who they say they are when they're detained.
And don't forget, the authorities don't need to be *convinced* the real person is who they and their witnesses say they are, they only need to think there's a possibility that some change may have happened to the database to justify flagging the database identity as suspicious while they wait for the backups of the database to be checked to see if/when changes were made.
It's basically the same situation as if someone's using duplicate ID - unless they know the person they're impersonating isn't going to screw things up by using their own ID, they're likely to get detected sooner rather than later. The best defence against successful impersonation is to use ID frequently.
In any case, if a suspected terrorist has their fingerprints, etc on a watch-list, unless they can wipe their own data from the system, if their prints are scanned, they could still get matched to their real identity. If they had the ability to wipe their own data from the system, maybe they'd have the ability to remove the 'suspected terrorist' label and just use their own ID without problems, and not need to bother impersonating anyone.
For a terrorist, it's going to be much easier to recruit and use people who don't have a record, and who can use their own, valid ID, so that's what they'll probably do.
In other words, having ID cards doesn't seem likely to make their job easier, since their way round ID cards is the same as their current way round having people stopped via normal passport checks - use people without a record.
The main difference would seem to be that once a suspect's details were flagged on the system, it would be harder for them to pretend to be someone else by just getting a new passport, since their biometrics would keep matching their old identity as well.