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ID is (expectedly) a different application on the card chip. Not in any way related to MasterCard acccount. You can't have Nigerian ID on your card and Nigeria

• jjoonathan 12y ago
  I know. I was projecting the shitshow in the payment processing industry onto a national ID program in order to argue that the same techniques used to extract money (not to mention anticompetitive staying power) from the payment-processing system would work just as well if not better in a national ID system. Is MasterCard to blame for those ridiculous sytems? Not specifically, but if the same incentives are in place (and they are, that was the point of my imaginitive story) then I fear that anyone involved in the business end of a privatization effort for, say, US IDs could copy the business model of "half-ass the security to generate pain, make your money as the exclusive provider (or licensor) of half-assed solutions to the generated pain." It's a good business model, which is why it's imperative that we keep business interests away from the most lucrative targets. Alternatively we could try to fix this horrendous perverse incentive, but I think that's a much shakier approach that would be much easier for the wrong people to work around.