The Federal ID card was used in Brazil as the sole ID for most people, and no fingerprint verification process was used. (Although the card does include a thumb print on it, as I recall, w/o digging mine out.) But Brazilian citizens were not required to renew theirs from time to time, as were foreigners. So many adults had a childhood photo on their usually ragged ID card. Most people, if they could afford the small fee, would get an authenticated copy made, and then carry that, to preserve the original. (There is no comparative process for document authentication here in the States. The document is taken to a government office, where the original and the copy are compared, then the copy stamped & embossed with the government seal.)JohnHurt wrote: ↑Wed Dec 27, 2023 8:16 amIn the 1980's, the police in Tennessee were telling my grandparents to engrave their Drivers License number on their tools. Not anymore, not practical, and needs grinding off if the owner dies, etc..Neto wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 5:32 pmOriginally the SSN WAS considered a personal ID number, at least by the police in Oklahoma, who advized that it be used to identify personal property, by engraving it into each article. (When we were selling off my Dad's tools, it took some time to grind off his SSN from lots of tools. And my brother had his engraved on his old bike. I don't think I had ever done it, because I didn't get one until I was 18 or more, the first time I had a job that wasn't just for the church, with my Dad as the 'person responsible'.)Ken wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 4:03 pm
And no, we don't need a NEW national ID system because we already have a national ID system based on SSN/ITIN numbers. That doesn't mean you need to carry your SS card and show it as ID. Because it isn't an ID card. But a SSN/ITIN is necessary to conduct a vast number of types of government and business transactions in this country. And if such a system did not exist, the government would have to create it for the modern economy to operate.
Aside from conspiracy theories of how a government might use a national ID system as a way to persecute certain groups of citizens, there would be several benefits in having a Federal ID card issued for every legal person in the nation (citizens and non-citizens legally in the country). Brazil has this type of registration process, and it is used for lots of purposes, such as a voting ID, official ID for being checked into the country, or when leaving, being checked out of the country. When the card is issued, a full set of finger prints are taken. If such a database were fully computerized, it would be a serious aid in the identification of perpetrators of crime. DNA sampling could also be added to the requirements. I realize that the citizenry here would "raise some serious Cain" if the government suggested such a thing, so it's not going to happen unless a totalitarian government takes over, but still, there would be benefits of such a program. Unfortunately also a great potential for misuse.
I worked at the State of Tennessee in IT for 30 years, in 5 different departments. Several times the State had a data breech where the people in their databases had their name, address, and SSN stolen. But your SSN information without verification that it is "actually you" is nearly worthless. So Brazil having biometric fingerprints "on file" is good, but person would have to produce the fingerprints every time they used the ID process, which is not practical.
What they ask for is in the USA to see your Drivers License ID with a picture, which they visually match to see your face. That's a biometric process that requires no equipment.
When I worked in IT with the Drivers License group, they had a facial recognition program that compared every DL picture to every other DL picture to see if there were duplicates. An investigator would see if it was a case of identical twins, or someone with multiple DLs.
Tennessee Drivers license requires that you give them your physical address, no PO box, and you are legally required to tell them when you move.
So having an SSN is not nearly as much of an identifier as a Drivers License. As of around 10 years ago when I retired, the 50 States were not sharing information between them on who had a DL number or not. So potentially, you could have a DL in several states at once.
Even at the State of Tennessee, when you owed money on Child Support at the Dept of Human Services and were "banned" from all services in that Dept until you paid in full, you could still register as a Contractor at the Dept of Commerce and Insurance, or do business with the other departments, as they did not share information between departments.
As Will Rogers said, "You can be thankful you are not getting all of the government you are paying for."
One of the last projects I did at the Dept of Safety was to introduce them to the Perceptics Corp out of Oak Ridge. This company made some bulky license plate readers in 2002 when I worked with them, but I heard they had it down to a handheld "radar gun" model by 2013 when I left the State.
The device will take a picture of the back of the car, and extract the license number, match it against all the different types of plates (vanity, specialty, government) for all of the 50 states, and match it to a database to see if the car is stolen or whatever. US Customs uses this same technology at the Border.
The story I heard before I left the State is that a detective took one of the Commissioner's aides out to show how this technology worked, in Memphis TN, outside a school in a lower income area at "pickup time" around 3:00 pm.
They found that about 20% of the moms were driving their boyfriends cars to pick up their kids, and the boyfriend was wanted for DUI, outstanding warrants, or parking violations. So for public relations reasons, they chose not actively use the license plate readers. They also thought it might make people think their right to privacy was being invaded, and other reasons.
As foreigners, we had to have a new card made every 4 years or so, and it was also plasticized, whereas the citizen card was just paper. Foreigners with legal residency status over the age of 59 or 60 do not need to replace their cards after that.