Digital IDs, Privacy, and Freedom

By Jon Udell

November 5, 2001

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The Rules for a "Certificate-Rich" World Aren't Yet Written

As new identification regimes emerge, let's build a general-purpose platform that supports many options.

As Byte.com's editorial director Jonathan Erickson notes in his October 22 editorial, the post-September-11 reshuffling of U.S. priorities has revived interest in the idea of national identity cards for citizens. It was, of course, hardly surprising that Oracle's Larry Ellison and Sun's Scott McNealy would advocate a scheme that requires massive databases and ubiquitous Java ID cards. What was quite unexpected, though, was the position taken by famed civil libertarian Alan Dershowitz. In an Op-Ed piece published in The New York Times on October 13, Dershowitz argued that by helping security efforts focus on individuals rather than ethnic stereotypes, IDs could on the whole enhance rather than diminish civil liberties:

I prefer a system that takes a little bit of freedom from all to one that takes a great deal of freedom and dignity from the few — especially since those few are usually from a racially or ethnically disfavored group. A national ID card would be much more effective in preventing terrorism than profiling millions of men simply because of their appearance.

It's been 25 years since the discovery of public-key cryptography. Today it remains a little-used and deeply paradoxical technology. The National Security Agency, alluding darkly to hostile use of "encrypted products and services," reminds us why encryption tools were until recently classified as weapons. They can wrap conversations in an impenetrable cloak of privacy.

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