6 ms·

The US is an odd case where there is no central government ID or identification base layer. There are many independent authorities that can issue an ID, none of

The US is an odd case where there is no central government ID or identification base layer. There are many independent authorities that can issue an ID, none of which are universally provisioned or recognized by governments within the country. This creates enough edge cases that it is essentially required to be possible to bootstrap an identity from negligible formal documentation, which is also a rather large loophole.

jiveturkey 3y ago
why doesn’t a passport count? or do you mean, no central ID that is the only acceptable ID for various services
- jasode 3y ago
  >why doesn’t a passport count? In the USA, non-citizens (legal permanent residents aka "green card" holders) can't get passports. They can get state-level drivers licenses but only citizens can get passports from the centralized-level Federal government.
  - photonbucket 3y ago
    Greencards have a MRZ just like passports though. Green cards are effectively entry-only passports (from the perspective of the US). You can enter the country by land with just the GC with no passport. Additionally, if you arrive by air and you have global entry they don't look at your passport at all, just the GC.
  - techsupporter 3y ago
    > In the USA, non-citizens (legal permanent residents aka "green card" holders) can't get passports. Is there a reason they can't get a passport from their country of citizenship? Plus, passports are fully standardized, at least the biometric ones are. It's possible to read and verify the data on a biometric passport entirely offline using open source applications that implement the documented processes.
    - arlort 3y ago
      Presumably they can but it won't prove their legal status in the US, assuming the local government even recognises it as a legal form if ID
  - wdb 3y ago
    How did the green card holder enter the USA without a valid ID / passport?
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      Well, they probably didn’t do so with a valid US ID, and certainly not with a valid US passport.
  - pvg 3y ago
    Yes but they definitely have centralized id - the 'Alien Registration Card' itself. Technically, lawful permanent residents are supposed to carry it at all times.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > In the USA, non-citizens (legal permanent residents aka “green card” holders) can’t get passports. Yes, but legal permanent residents (and some other legally resident aliens) also have federally-issued ID, and its not optional the way passports are for citizens. (For LPRs, the Permanent Resident Card, for others the Employment Authorization Document or Immigrant Visa.)
  - michaelt 3y ago
    Forgive my ignorance, but isn't the green card already a federally issued, nationally recognised photo ID?
- dylan604 3y ago
  I think you greatly underestimate the number of people that do not have a passport.
  - jiveturkey 3y ago
    I recognize that percentage-wise, dissapointingly few US citizens have passports. I suppose it's more linked to economic status than anything else. But I was merely rebutting the parent's statement that there is no centrally issued ID in the USA, in the context of ironic use for a base layer for "decentralized" identity. It's too bad the article focused on that nonsense instead of, what good is a decentralized identity -- if it can't assert your actual physical identity.
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  A passport is an ID. However, it is not mandatory and some State governments do not recognize it as a valid ID for legal purposes. In the US, the power to issue authoritative IDs resides with the individual States, not the Federal government, which creates many interesting edge cases.
  - pvg 3y ago
    some State governments do not recognize it as a valid ID for legal purposes. Do you know which state governments?
    - tptacek 3y ago
      I don't believe this is true, and the reason I don't is that this question nerdsniped me and I looked up every state and found that they all, every one of them, including the ones that made me click into PDFs to verify the fact, accept passports as identification in order to obtain Real ID drivers licenses. (Also I have writers block).
      - pvg 3y ago
        Hah, thanks, I sort of suspected as much, weird as US id stuff is. Like if you'd told me 20+ years ago that the federal government can't get states to standardize their ids even in full anti-terrorism super saiyan mode, I'd have thought that was bullshit too.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jiggawatts 3y ago
Australia is the same. Even accessing federal systems involves a baroque system of multi-credential attestation where you nominally have a single “GovId” but in practice you have to jump through a bunch of hoops on a per-agency basis. The GovId itself is a weird amalgam of “n-of-m” identity papers. This all happened because back in the early 2000s there was an attempt at a single “Australia ID” but geriatrics had their brains pickled in decades of anti-communist propaganda and voted against it. The logic is: “Only communist governments know who their citizens are.” Democracies apparently have to be ignorant and easily exploited by criminals falsely claiming pensions and other benefits using easily forged identity papers.
- acdha 3y ago
  > This all happened because back in the early 2000s there was an attempt at a single “Australia ID” but geriatrics had their brains pickled in decades of anti-communist propaganda and voted against it. This is similar to how the U.S. has a certain amount of opposition from Christian sects who believe any sort of national ID number would be the biblical mark of the beast. There’s a certain dark humor in the way privacy is used to complain about identification cards but that only leads to the semi-regulated private data brokers being used by everyone, including the government, with purchased access to far more data.
- spacebanana7 3y ago
  > geriatrics had their brains pickled in decades of anti-communist propaganda and voted against it. Isn’t the CCP’s behaviour still one of the best arguments against universal government ID?
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    I cannot fathom the error in logic that yields the conclusion that elected governments having a SQL table with a primary key constraint is somehow "the same thing" as the authoritarian abuses of power by a single-party communist dictatorship. A number on a piece of paper is not the root cause of secret police brutally cracking down on dissidents!
techsupporter 3y ago
> The US is an odd case where there is no central government ID or identification base layer. As others have mentioned, the US Federal government issues passports and passport cards, yet it's entirely up to the agency that wants ID what IDs they will accept. I've been turned down for using a passport card for some Washington State government activities ("the card doesn't have a signature"), using a passport to buy an age-restricted item from a store ("we can't scan it"), and a passport card with the state's largest credit union ("too much fraud with passport cards"). Yet none of these are documented anywhere. Everyone just assumes you'll have a state-issued driver license and if you don't, well, you're obviously up to something nefarious. (Before anyone asks, I do have a state-issued enhanced identification card. It looks identical to a driver license, except it says "identification" on it. I've still been told "that's not a driver's license, I can't take that.")
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  I use a Federal ID when dealing with legal purviews of the Federal government, and a State ID when dealing with the legal purviews of State governments (which is most things). This is the only reliable scheme I've found. As a matter of Constitutionality, the States are largely required to recognize State IDs, but no one is required to recognize Federal IDs because there is no authority and as a practical matter many governments don't. It doesn't help that some clerks are confused by the zoo of government issued IDs that exist in the US. IDs in the US are a mess, the legal barriers to making it possible to have an organized identity system are very high, and both the Democrats and Republicans are resistant to removing those legal barriers, so this situation is unlikely to change.
  - maxerickson 3y ago
    Real ID has more or less happened. States still issue IDs that don't meet those requirements, but at some point it's likely enough to actually become a requirement for using the ID to fly (instead of being delayed again).
    - jandrewrogers 3y ago
briffle 3y ago
And even then, most of us can do a ton of damage just knowing the last 4 of someones social security number, and their bithday.

jiveturkey 3y ago

why doesn’t a passport count? or do you mean, no central ID that is the only acceptable ID for various services

jasode 3y ago
>why doesn’t a passport count? In the USA, non-citizens (legal permanent residents aka "green card" holders) can't get passports. They can get state-level drivers licenses but only citizens can get passports from the centralized-level Federal government.
- photonbucket 3y ago
  Greencards have a MRZ just like passports though. Green cards are effectively entry-only passports (from the perspective of the US). You can enter the country by land with just the GC with no passport. Additionally, if you arrive by air and you have global entry they don't look at your passport at all, just the GC.
- techsupporter 3y ago
  > In the USA, non-citizens (legal permanent residents aka "green card" holders) can't get passports. Is there a reason they can't get a passport from their country of citizenship? Plus, passports are fully standardized, at least the biometric ones are. It's possible to read and verify the data on a biometric passport entirely offline using open source applications that implement the documented processes.
  - arlort 3y ago
    Presumably they can but it won't prove their legal status in the US, assuming the local government even recognises it as a legal form if ID
- wdb 3y ago
  How did the green card holder enter the USA without a valid ID / passport?
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Well, they probably didn’t do so with a valid US ID, and certainly not with a valid US passport.
- pvg 3y ago
  Yes but they definitely have centralized id - the 'Alien Registration Card' itself. Technically, lawful permanent residents are supposed to carry it at all times.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > In the USA, non-citizens (legal permanent residents aka “green card” holders) can’t get passports. Yes, but legal permanent residents (and some other legally resident aliens) also have federally-issued ID, and its not optional the way passports are for citizens. (For LPRs, the Permanent Resident Card, for others the Employment Authorization Document or Immigrant Visa.)
- michaelt 3y ago
  Forgive my ignorance, but isn't the green card already a federally issued, nationally recognised photo ID?
dylan604 3y ago
I think you greatly underestimate the number of people that do not have a passport.
- jiveturkey 3y ago
  I recognize that percentage-wise, dissapointingly few US citizens have passports. I suppose it's more linked to economic status than anything else. But I was merely rebutting the parent's statement that there is no centrally issued ID in the USA, in the context of ironic use for a base layer for "decentralized" identity. It's too bad the article focused on that nonsense instead of, what good is a decentralized identity -- if it can't assert your actual physical identity.
jandrewrogers 3y ago
A passport is an ID. However, it is not mandatory and some State governments do not recognize it as a valid ID for legal purposes. In the US, the power to issue authoritative IDs resides with the individual States, not the Federal government, which creates many interesting edge cases.
- pvg 3y ago
  some State governments do not recognize it as a valid ID for legal purposes. Do you know which state governments?
  - tptacek 3y ago
    I don't believe this is true, and the reason I don't is that this question nerdsniped me and I looked up every state and found that they all, every one of them, including the ones that made me click into PDFs to verify the fact, accept passports as identification in order to obtain Real ID drivers licenses. (Also I have writers block).
    - pvg 3y ago
      Hah, thanks, I sort of suspected as much, weird as US id stuff is. Like if you'd told me 20+ years ago that the federal government can't get states to standardize their ids even in full anti-terrorism super saiyan mode, I'd have thought that was bullshit too.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jiggawatts 3y ago

Australia is the same. Even accessing federal systems involves a baroque system of multi-credential attestation where you nominally have a single “GovId” but in practice you have to jump through a bunch of hoops on a per-agency basis. The GovId itself is a weird amalgam of “n-of-m” identity papers. This all happened because back in the early 2000s there was an attempt at a single “Australia ID” but geriatrics had their brains pickled in decades of anti-communist propaganda and voted against it. The logic is: “Only communist governments know who their citizens are.” Democracies apparently have to be ignorant and easily exploited by criminals falsely claiming pensions and other benefits using easily forged identity papers.

acdha 3y ago
> This all happened because back in the early 2000s there was an attempt at a single “Australia ID” but geriatrics had their brains pickled in decades of anti-communist propaganda and voted against it. This is similar to how the U.S. has a certain amount of opposition from Christian sects who believe any sort of national ID number would be the biblical mark of the beast. There’s a certain dark humor in the way privacy is used to complain about identification cards but that only leads to the semi-regulated private data brokers being used by everyone, including the government, with purchased access to far more data.
spacebanana7 3y ago
> geriatrics had their brains pickled in decades of anti-communist propaganda and voted against it. Isn’t the CCP’s behaviour still one of the best arguments against universal government ID?
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  I cannot fathom the error in logic that yields the conclusion that elected governments having a SQL table with a primary key constraint is somehow "the same thing" as the authoritarian abuses of power by a single-party communist dictatorship. A number on a piece of paper is not the root cause of secret police brutally cracking down on dissidents!

techsupporter 3y ago

> The US is an odd case where there is no central government ID or identification base layer. As others have mentioned, the US Federal government issues passports and passport cards, yet it's entirely up to the agency that wants ID what IDs they will accept. I've been turned down for using a passport card for some Washington State government activities ("the card doesn't have a signature"), using a passport to buy an age-restricted item from a store ("we can't scan it"), and a passport card with the state's largest credit union ("too much fraud with passport cards"). Yet none of these are documented anywhere. Everyone just assumes you'll have a state-issued driver license and if you don't, well, you're obviously up to something nefarious. (Before anyone asks, I do have a state-issued enhanced identification card. It looks identical to a driver license, except it says "identification" on it. I've still been told "that's not a driver's license, I can't take that.")

jandrewrogers 3y ago
I use a Federal ID when dealing with legal purviews of the Federal government, and a State ID when dealing with the legal purviews of State governments (which is most things). This is the only reliable scheme I've found. As a matter of Constitutionality, the States are largely required to recognize State IDs, but no one is required to recognize Federal IDs because there is no authority and as a practical matter many governments don't. It doesn't help that some clerks are confused by the zoo of government issued IDs that exist in the US. IDs in the US are a mess, the legal barriers to making it possible to have an organized identity system are very high, and both the Democrats and Republicans are resistant to removing those legal barriers, so this situation is unlikely to change.
- maxerickson 3y ago
  Real ID has more or less happened. States still issue IDs that don't meet those requirements, but at some point it's likely enough to actually become a requirement for using the ID to fly (instead of being delayed again).
  - jandrewrogers 3y ago

briffle 3y ago

And even then, most of us can do a ton of damage just knowing the last 4 of someones social security number, and their bithday.