Wheres the SLA when you really need them? Then again that's a little
extreme...Maybe some kind of financial uppercut?
The local equivalent SecureNet was raided for it's cashbox by a greenmailer
recently here in OZ.
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,5893971%5e15316%5e%5enbv%5e15306,00.html
Geoffry Ross,SecureNet Ceo claims to be in 'hot' area of IT...tell that to
all the HK deportee's his ID card has flushed out in Totalitarian run Hong
Kong,I bet they're steamed.
Perspective: Closer to a national ID plan?
By Declan McCullagh
February 17, 2003, 4:00 AM PT
WASHINGTON--A little-known company called EagleCheck is hoping to provide a
standardized identity check technique that governments and corporations
will use to verify that you are who you claim to be.
EagleCheck, a privately held firm in Cleveland proposes that whenever
someone uses a driver's license or a passport for identity verification,
the ID's authenticity will be checked through EagleCheck's network that is
tied to state motor vehicle and federal databases. The databases will
respond by saying whether the ID is valid.
I ran into David Akers, EagleCheck's president, last week in a Senate
office building where he was hawking his system to a crowd of politicians
understandably nervous about Threat Level Orange, Osama bin Laden, and
possible terrorist attacks sparked by a loominginvasion of Iraq. Stacked on
a table were brochures warning in stark crimson letters that "EagleCheck
could have flagged" 14 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked planes on Sept.
11, 2001, because some had used expired visas and stolen passports.
Akers has had some success so far. In December, the Transportation Security
Administration gave permission for EagleCheck to link its systems "to
government databases" in a pair of test projects at the Cleveland and
Akron, Ohio airports.
But EagleCheck isn't limiting its marketing plan to airport security. "We
are certainly looking at a variety of other applications other than
airports," said Akers, listing bars, banks, government buildings--in short,
wherever ID is required--as possible customers.
If EagleCheck or a similar system succeeds, it raises the specter of
something akin to a national identity card, a concept that Americans have
shunned in the past but could return in a more high-tech form. (In a column
last summer, I wrote about how the White House was pressuring state
governments to move in this direction by standardizing on driver's licenses.)
Last week, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., suggested that the United States
might have to move toward a national identity card for U.S. citizens,
according to a report at Newsmax.com. "Although I'm not a big fan of it, we
might have to move toward an ID system even for citizens," Clinton said.
In the days after Sept. 11, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison began touting the
idea. "The government could phase in digital ID cards to replace existing
Social Security cards and driver's licenses," Ellison wrote in the Wall
Street Journal. "These new IDs should be based on a uniform standard such
as credit card technology, which is harder to counterfeit than existing
government IDs, or on smart-card technology, which is better but more
expensive."
If EagleCheck or a system like it succeeds, it becomes eerily possible to
imagine a future in which ID readers are omnipresent, girding us in a
constant mesh of surveillance.
National IDs come in many forms, and some are admittedly less invasive than
others. According to Privacy International, other countries that do not
have national identity cards include Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and
Sweden; those that do include Germany, France, Greece, Portugal and Spain.
Canada is considering following their lead. Denis Coderre, Canada's
immigration minister, said this month that a card would reduce identity
fraud by linking digitized fingerprints to a central database. (No wonder
Canada's privacy commissioner, in his recent annual report, said: "We are
on a path that may well lead to the permanent loss not only of privacy
rights that we take for granted but also of important elements of freedom
as we now know it.")
It's true that many of us already use our driver's license as a general
form of identification. But a true national ID would be different in two
important ways: First, it would be tied to a back-end database so all
verifications would be logged with the time, date and location. Second, you
likely would be required to show it on demand to police, shrinking our
sphere of anonymity even more.
One problem with such a system is that it would not thwart terrorists
who--if you believe the FBI--are already living in the United States and
likely could obtain a valid identity card either legally or illegally.
Administering such a database would require a massive bureaucracy, and the
inevitable errors or glitches would eliminate an innocent person's freedom
to travel from one place to another until they were corrected.
If EagleCheck or a system like it succeeds, it becomes eerily possible to
imagine a future in which identity card readers are omnipresent, girding us
in a constant mesh of surveillance. Want to pick up your car from the
parking garage? Insert your identity card and forefinger in the reader
first. Going to work at the office or coming home to an apartment building?
Better make sure you have that microchipped card with you. Have any unpaid
parking tickets anywhere in the United States? Better just stay at home.
Needless to say, this massive database would end up bursting with detailed
records of all our life's activities. It would be incredibly valuable to
police and create an irresistible temptation for misuse, either through
corrupt officials or through electronic intrusions. I'm not saying that
such a scenario is happening today. It isn't. But it's possible, and if
there's another terrorist attack on the United States, all bets are off.
For now, the key question about EagleCheck is whether its records of our
electronic comings-and-goings will be purged or stored. When used at
airports, it makes sense to keep the information on hand for a day
so--until planes safely land--before deleting it, but in other situations
the justification for any data retention is much weaker.
The problem is that given such an informational gold mine, the FBI and the
Justice Department won't let that happen. "We would have within the system
the information that's in your ID and where and when it was swiped, what
database it went to, and what response was delivered," Akers said. "From
our perspective, as soon as 24 hours (elapse) after you get on the plane at
Reagan National Airport or wherever, if we could purge that, we would like
to. The question is how quickly are we legally allowed to purge that
information. Ultimately we believe a legislative body and or a court is
going to make that determination."
I trust Congress with my privacy. Don't you?
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-984792.html?tag=fd_nc_1
