National Identification Cards What's the Purpose?

By: Allen Richardson Posted on: 2007-01-12 Downloads: 126 ** Print Article ** ** Copy Article ** Please Rate this Article 5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5  Not yet Rated

Article Summary: Immigration, border control and economic reasons are just some of the items being debated. It is fairly simple to understand the perceived need to clearly identify an individual’s nationality for reasons such as employment and citizenship benefits.

Small and large countries are weighing the pros and cons of national identification cards. Immigration, border control and economic reasons are just some of the items being debated. It is fairly simple to understand the perceived need to clearly identify an individual’s nationality for reasons such as employment and citizenship benefits. When reviewing things as important as who should receive medical services offered by the government versus who not to provide these services, the need for identifying a countries citizens is critical.

Many countries that are examining the possibilities for such needs are doing so because the only form of national identification that anyone has is a printed piece of paper. These documents are simple to forge and do not have a picture or other identifiable marks that would indicate who it belongs to other than the holder. Documents like these are easily stolen or duplicated by people in order to enter countries or receive citizenship benefits. Simply controlling the cost and reducing the abuse of these types of services is economic reason enough to introduce a national photo identification card system. Because of the needs mentioned here it’s clear that some of the requirements of ID cards would include biometric information from a simple photograph to the characteristics of the individual including height, eye color and sex. Some countries have incorporated finger prints and even retinal scan information into the national ID cards as well as into the national database.

Many of the countries that have started or are considering this process do not have an accurate account of its current citizenship nor any relevant or reliable census information. Starting a national identification process and implementing identification cards into a country in this situation has many other benefits such as border control, tracking citizenship benefits, criminal records and even military service. Currently some of these countries have systems to track these issues but in most situations these systems are independent of each other. Creating a national identification card and system would allow the creation of a database that would merge all of this information into a much simpler solution.

As governments review these types of requirements, it has become in many cases a task for outsourcing. For many nations, undertaking the monumental feat of photographing, capturing information and providing ID cards to every citizen is too large for governments to handle efficiently. There have been a few companies providing solutions for nations and one of them is FullIdentity.com. This organization has been providing photo identification cards for individuals for about seven years and have created solutions that incorporate much more than simply providing cards. In many cases solutions have been developed for countries that are not only easy to implement but also provide an economic benefit for the countries implementing them. Simply put, when outsourcing the identification card needs of a country to a provider such as FullIdentity.com, the costs are less expensive than they would be if a nation took on the burden of developing a solution internally. Because of the discounted expense, the country can charge the citizens less for the ID cards than they would if the nation was passing the expense along directly to the resident. This would still leave a financial margin that would be paid to the government.

Ultimately, when looking at the issue of implementing a national identification card system into a country from the prospective of the government, it is hard to find an economic reason not to move forward. Yes, there are and will be advocates that claim that “big brother” is taking away our privacy and our rights. And yes, privacy about our criminal records, border crossings, and military records is lost but shouldn’t these things be monitored by someone? Shouldn’t a nation protect its citizenship benefits for just its citizens; or should it allow anyone to benefit from the government regardless of their own nationality?

Article Source: http://www.upublish.info

About the Author:
Allen Richardson
Founder of http://www.FullIdentity.com and Virtual Tournament Director, Allen Richardson has created applications for registering and distributing identification cards for over seven years. Allen is also the author of Personal Discipline, and serves as a consultant to many organizations such as Southwest Airlines and BNSF Railway.