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Identifying Citizens: ID Cards as Surveillance
New ID card systems are proliferating around the world. These may use digitized fingerprints or photos, may be contactless, using a scanner, and above all, may rely on computerized registries of personal information. In this timely new contribution, David Lyon argues that such IDs represent a fresh phase in the long-term attempts of modern states to find stable ways of identifying citizens. New ID systems are “new” because they are high-tech. But their newness is also seen crucially in the ways that they contribute to new means of governance. The rise of e-Government and global mobility along with the aftermath of 9/11 and fears of identity theft are propelling the trend towards new ID systems. This is further lubricated by high technology companies seeking lucrative procurements, giving stakes in identification practices to agencies additional to nation-states, particularly technical and commercial ones. While the claims made for new IDs focus on security, efficiency and convenience, each proposal is also controversial. Fears of privacy-loss, limits to liberty, government control, and even of totalitarian tendencies are expressed by critics. This book takes an historical, comparative and sociological look at citizen-identification, and new ID cards in particular. It concludes that their widespread use is both likely and, without some strong safeguards, troublesome, though not necessarily for the reasons most popularly proposed. Arguing that new IDs demand new approaches to identification practices given their potential for undermining trust and contributing to social exclusion, David Lyon provides the clearest overview of this topical area to date.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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March 16, 2018
“Identifying Citizens: ID Cards as Surveillance” provides a crucial historical perspective on debates surrounding the use of electronic ID cards and biometric identifications.
David Lyon describes how the concept of universal ID is relatively new. Identification systems were originally designed to control “suspect” segments of the population. The author argues that, even though identification management is presented nowadays as indiscriminate, it is in practice targeting vulnerable populations such as migrants and welfare recipients.
The author draws the distinction between identity, something subjective based on personal stories, and identification, a process of identifying who is who. He argues that the confusion between the two leads to a form of alienation by the state. “In the process we lose sight of each other’s faces and can no longer hear each other’s voices”.
The book describes how every identification mechanism aims ultimately at “sorting populations according to a variety of criteria for differential treatment between groups.”. This sorting can be motivated by a desire to provide a fair welfare system, but is, more often than not, performed nowadays for “security” reasons, with a fetishism for tracking and control. “Today, pressure is on to find IDs that work for several purposes – border crossing, fraud control, access to government information and perhaps for commercial (video rental) and semi-commercial (libraries) activities as well – which is shaping the field in fresh ways.”
According to the digressive approach (a methodology used by our think tank to promote pluralism), I would classify national registers of citizens as monopolies, in the sense that they are mandatory to every citizen. A monopoly is by nature limiting people’s choices, in this case whether to possess an ID card or not.
Either this monopoly enables other choices that are considered more important, such as to have access to a welfare system. And I suggest that the monopoly should at least be conciliated so that it doesn’t impose any ideology to citizens. Conciliation could take the form of restricting national identification to very specific contexts, or to use it only for positive discriminations.
Or, as the book tends to suggest, the monopoly is not necessary to maximise people’s choices in life. According to the digressive approach, it should then be dismantled so that citizens can choose among alternative registries and modes of identification, or to not be identified at all. This could be achieved through the abandon of interoperability, so that have each registry has very specific and transparent goals.
David Lyon describes how the concept of universal ID is relatively new. Identification systems were originally designed to control “suspect” segments of the population. The author argues that, even though identification management is presented nowadays as indiscriminate, it is in practice targeting vulnerable populations such as migrants and welfare recipients.
The author draws the distinction between identity, something subjective based on personal stories, and identification, a process of identifying who is who. He argues that the confusion between the two leads to a form of alienation by the state. “In the process we lose sight of each other’s faces and can no longer hear each other’s voices”.
The book describes how every identification mechanism aims ultimately at “sorting populations according to a variety of criteria for differential treatment between groups.”. This sorting can be motivated by a desire to provide a fair welfare system, but is, more often than not, performed nowadays for “security” reasons, with a fetishism for tracking and control. “Today, pressure is on to find IDs that work for several purposes – border crossing, fraud control, access to government information and perhaps for commercial (video rental) and semi-commercial (libraries) activities as well – which is shaping the field in fresh ways.”
According to the digressive approach (a methodology used by our think tank to promote pluralism), I would classify national registers of citizens as monopolies, in the sense that they are mandatory to every citizen. A monopoly is by nature limiting people’s choices, in this case whether to possess an ID card or not.
Either this monopoly enables other choices that are considered more important, such as to have access to a welfare system. And I suggest that the monopoly should at least be conciliated so that it doesn’t impose any ideology to citizens. Conciliation could take the form of restricting national identification to very specific contexts, or to use it only for positive discriminations.
Or, as the book tends to suggest, the monopoly is not necessary to maximise people’s choices in life. According to the digressive approach, it should then be dismantled so that citizens can choose among alternative registries and modes of identification, or to not be identified at all. This could be achieved through the abandon of interoperability, so that have each registry has very specific and transparent goals.
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