Blogging on bureaucracy, organizations, USDA, agriculture programs, American history, the food movement, and other interests. Often contrarian, usually optimistic, sometimes didactic, occasionally funny, rarely wrong, always a nitpicker.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
ID Numbers in India
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Limiting the Use of SSN's
The eventual goal is to have a unique Defense Department ID replace Social Security numbers across all the services. Defense expects to begin removing Social Security numbers from bar codes on service member ID cards by 2012.There's a gain to using organization-specific (DOD) IDs instead of nation-specific IDs (SSN's), I suppose. My personal prejudice is for using applications which don't require an ID number at all. After all, if you need to distinguish among the multiple Bill Harshaws who live in the world, a combination of data works. Just use the Whitepages application and do a search for a last name and a town. They'll respond with a list of people with the last name and provide the first names, often the ages, and often the other people in the household. Usually that's good enough for what you want.
Granted there may be some instances in which the organization needs greater certainty. For example, consider an ID card. My VA drivers license used to have the SSN on it, but now it's got a customer ID number. That's what store clerks write down, or they used to, when they ask for ID for a check or a purchase. Such requests are infrequent now; I'm not sure whether it's because businesses have figured the info is not worth the hassle or what. The better solution would be a picture of me and my card, which they may be getting.
I'd hasten to add that there needs to be an ID card number, which identifies the ID card itself, but which doesn't identify the person. If I lose my license, VDOT needs to reissue one, and know which actual card was lost and which I should have. That way, if the lost card pops up in someone's possession they can tell the difference. I don't know VDOT's business processes, but it looks as if they do have such a card number on the license.
Finally, if needed, any organization these days should be able to rely on an email address, which is what they do online. Unfortunately not everyone has one, which is a subject for another day.
Monday, June 21, 2010
On Naming
I wonder how long it will be before we all get email addresses at birth? Of course, the younger generation no longer uses email, just Twitter and Facebook.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Identity and Surveillance
While some, like the ACLU, see such things as violating our right to privacy. I'm reminded, however, in the small towns we used to live in there was no such privacy--everyone knew everyone without the need of a fingerprint reader and everyone watched everyone, without use of CCTV.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Identity and Passwords
Monday, August 24, 2009
Why NAIS Might Seem Sensible
When we track our children and our pets, why not track our food?
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Government ID's
"The bill would eliminate a mandate for states to create a national information-technology system for sharing data. Instead, state departments of motor vehicles would have to "take appropriate steps" to determine a person does not have a license from another state."Meanwhile this Federal Computer Weekly piece covers attempts to improve the ID's of first responders.
And Equifax has its own proposal:Federal Emergency Management Agency officials hope a pilot program demonstrated today to make first responders' credentials interoperable across jurisdictions will expand nationwide.
Run by FEMA’s Office of National Capital Region Coordination (NCRC), the program encourages state and local officials and the companies that run critical infrastructures to ensure that their credentials comply with Federal Information Processing Standard 201.
Personally, as a confirmed bureaucrat, I'd like one Federal ID card. But that's not possible in our society; we're too paranoid.Equifax, the big credit agency that already knows more about your flea count than you do, wants to help.
It is developing a service that will let you create an online identity that can assert various “claims” that it will back up. To an online wine merchant, it might back you up when you say you are of legal age. If you are applying to open a bank account, the company might vouch for your entire profile, including name, address, birthday and Social Security number.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
One Cell to Rule Them All
On its blog, there's a suggestion to convert cellphones into the SecurID device. As it says: "For those of you who don’t work for security-conscious corporations, a SecurID is a little LED display that goes in your wallet or on your keychain, that flashes a different six digit number every minute or so. You need to enter that number, along with a user name and password, to get into some computer systems."
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Our British Cousins Have Their Own Problems of Identity
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Identifying Voters, Taxpayers, and Patients
So it's time for me to renew my plea to do away with Social Security numbers. Implement a system that identifies eligible voters, potential patients (based on the recent RAND study) and taxpayers but at the same time phases out the use of SSN's. I'm convinced we could come up with a system that increases the safeguards for each person's privacy, gives people much more control over how their data is used and to whom it is available, and improves efficiency.
The key model is the virtual credit card number, not the one you're used to using but the one VISA offers which few people use. Most people give merchants their credit card number, which can be risky. But you can choose to have VISA provide a number that works only for the transaction, or the vendor. See this. Adapt the same principle and you can have a government-validated identification number for each employer-employee relationship, each patient-healthcare provider relationship, and each voter-voting district relationship; each different, each safeguarded, and none requiring an SSN.
Seems to me if you point out to reasonable people that they already have a unique identifier (their email address) and we get rid of the SSN it's a reasonable deal.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Illegality of Immigrants
One of the insights of the Founders, as explained in the Federalist, and as expounded upon by the great Scotch-Irish Canadian, John Kenneth Galbraith, is the need to checks and balances, for countervailing power. That's absent with illegal immigrants.
As a knee-jerk bleeding heart liberal my heart is wrung by stories of the hardships of immigrants. And as someone who sometimes is swayed by the blandishments of free-market economists, I like to believe immigration is good for the nation and doesn't really exaggerate inequalities or hurt low-income workers. So I'm tempted to react--let them all in.
But, there's two lines of argument against an open-door policy which seem weighty: the danger of abuse of illegals, as exemplified in the Times story, and the unfairness to those who wait in line for legal entry.
That's why I'd prefer a policy of universal identification--everyone physically within the U.S. needs to be IDed and legalization by history. Once we have identification, then people who wish to work must agree for their history to be tracked: keep your nose clean and you can move up the ladder to citizenship; screw up and be sent back.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Good Bureaucracy in the DC Government
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Online ID and ID Cards
"The idea is to bring the concept of an identity card, like a driver’s license, to the online world. Rather than logging on to sites with user IDs and passwords, people will gain access to sites using a secure digital identity that is overseen by a third party. The user controls the information in a secure place and transmits only the data that is necessary to access a Web site."Having recently scorned Medicare's refusal to take the SSN off their ID card, I think the government should join this effort.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Medicare and SSN
I regard this with the disdain it deserves. The state of Virginia has phased out SSN's as the drivers license number. I recognize that Medicare is not used to issuing new cards every 5 years or so, but I assume they have procedures for replacing lost or stolen cards. And they have procedures for handling erroneous numbers (i.e., if they give out a card with the wrong number they're able to reissue a new card with the right number). Those two capabilities can be the basis for the changeover because they supply the business logic for the change. The third and missing element is a process to generate a unique 9-digit number for Medicare recipients. All they need is a cross-reference file matching their number to the SSN. Match all bills against the file so the provider can bill using either the SSN, if already in the provider's database, or the Medicare number.Ms. Frizzera, the Medicare official, said that issuing new Medicare cards would be “a huge undertaking.” The agency would need three years to plan such a move and eight more years to carry it out, she said.
Medicare officials estimate that it would cost $500 million to change their computer systems if they issued new ID numbers to beneficiaries. Doctors, hospitals and other health care providers use those numbers in filing claims with Medicare, which pays a billion claims a year.
The bottom line is, they're going to have to do it someday, might as well do it now.
Monday, June 02, 2008
A Faceless Iraqi Bureaucrat
The looped and dotted script of Abdul Ghani's signature is etched in rubber and slicked with ink. His signature is the final stamp of approval for many foreign matters involving Iraqi citizens.
"Every embassy in the world has a record of my signature," says Abdul, 28, leaning forward on his thick arms.
Apparently, he and other "authorizers" have to sign documents, like high school diplomas being used to apply to college abroad.
What's fascinating? Well, he is a faceless bureaucrat, but as he says, his signature is known. And before bureaucrats had signatures, they had seals, authenticating a document (i.e., like the Great Seal of the U.S. or the "signet" ring which was a more personal seal). Some movies make a big deal of the application of seals--like the warrant for execution of someone in British politics (Queen Mary, Cromwell, whoever). So on the one hand you have the anonymity of the bureaucrat, the document stating a bureaucratic rule without a hint of the author, but on the other hand you have the authentication, tracing the document back to some process with legitimacy.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Clearance Process
Here's a followup article
I have some doubts--the TSA watch list shows some of the problems of putting together databases. And genealogists run into the problem regularly--does record A refer to the same person as record B? I think a learning, evolutionary process could work. By which I mean, assign something like a credit rating to a person based on available data, track the person's history and adjust the rating accordingly. Unfortunately, that sort of thinking doesn't fit with the black and white, binary choice world of security clearances.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Identity Checks and Government Blogging
The proposal makes sense to me, but not to the first four comments on the blog. Maybe they aren't into genealogy, where you have to distinguish among multiple John Rippeys or even worse, William Smiths. Much less try to reconcile the data between ASCS and SCS to determine whether each agency was dealing with the same people. But then, I'm just a retired bureaucrat who tends to trust bureaucracies, at least in some instances.