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further privacy costs and threats. The privacy

Thousands of panicked Alabama residents

and data security consequences arising from

jammed Department of Public Safety offices

thinking they would lose their licenses.52 Such

the necessary national ID, for example, are

immense, increasingly well understood, and

problems would multiply dramatically should

probably insurmountable.

the national identity infrastructure needed for

The REAL ID Act requires states to main-

EEV ever be created.

tain databases of foundational identity docu-

ments, creating an incredibly attractive target

American Citizens' Privacy

for criminal organizations, hackers, and other

The American-citizen taxpayer would incur

wrongdoers. They would have more motiva-

not only pocketbook costs and increased

tion than ever to collect identity information

bureaucracy but lost privacy as well. An elec-

should a nationwide EEV system control

tronic system is not just a faster paper system.

access to employment.

It has dramatically different effects on privacy

The breach of a state's entire database--or

and the security of personal data.

the whole country's--containing copies of birth

When an employer collects a form like the

certificates and various other documents and

I-9 and puts it in a file, the information on

information could topple the identity system

the I-9 remains practically obscure. It is not

we use in the United States today. This is the

very easy to access, copy, or use. This protects

risk posed by the recent colossal data breach in

privacy, and it protects against the digital

Britain, in which essential data about 25 mil-

data breaches that so regularly come to light.

lion U.K. citizens were copied to discs, placed in

When an organization enters I-9 informa-

the post, and lost.53 The best data security is

tion into a Web form and sends it to the SSA

and DHS, that information is very easy for

achieved by avoiding the creation of large data-

those entities to access, copy, share, and use.

bases of sensitive and valuable information in

It is likely combined with "meta-data"--infor-

the first place. EEV would put Americans' sen-

mation about when the data were collected,

sitive personal information at risk.

from whom, and so on.

The security of back-end systems is far from

The EEV process would give these agencies

the only problem. Creation of a nationally uni-

access to a wealth of new data about every

form identity system as required for EEV

American's working situation. Because it uses

would bring a major change in how American

the SSN, EEV data would easily be correlated

society would use identity. It is not just anoth-

with tax records at the Internal Revenue Service,

er in a series of small steps. The national ID

Unless a clear,

education loan records in the Department of

required by EEV would promote tracking of,

strong, and

Education, health records at the Department of

and data collection about, all citizens.

Health and Human Services, and so on. Ameri-

Economists know well that standards cre-

verifiable data

cans living with EEV should not expect that they

ate efficiencies and economies of scale. When

destruction policy

could get work if they were in arrears on any

all the railroad tracks in the United States were

were in place, any

debt to the U.S. government, for example.

converted to the same gauge, for example, rail

Unless a clear, strong, and verifiable data

became a more efficient method of trans-

EEV system,

destruction policy were in place, any EEV sys-

portation. The same train car could travel on

however benign

tem, however benign in its inception, would be

tracks anywhere in the country, so more goods

in its inception,

a surveillance system that tracked all American

and people traveled by rail. Uniform ID cards

workers. The system would add to the data

would have the same influence on the uses of

would be a

stores throughout the federal government that

ID cards.

surveillance

continually amass information about the lives,

Most driver's licenses today have machine-

livelihoods, activities, and interests of every-

readable components like magnetic stripes and

system that tracks

one--especially law-abiding citizens.

bar codes. Their types, locations, and designs--

all American

Beyond EEV's direct costs, the identity sys-

and the information they carry--differ from

workers.

tem required to do EEV successfully entails

state to state. For this reason, they are not used

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