The ID Divide

Bruce Schneier has a nice post on the Center for American Progress paper on identification and identification technologies: "The ID Divide: Addressing the Challenges of Identification and Authentication in American Society."

Among other things, the paper identifies six principles for identification systems:

• Achieve real security or other goals
• Accuracy
• Inclusion
• Fairness and equality
• Effective redress mechanisms
• Equitable financing for systems

From the Executive Summary:

How can these principles be honored in practice? That’s where the "due diligence" process comes into play when considering and implementing identification systems. Due diligence in the financial world of mergers and acquisitions and other important corporate transactions is conducted before a company makes a major investment. Proponents of, say, a merger (or in our case, a new identification program) can err on the side of optimism, concluding too readily that the merger (or new ID program) is clearly the way to go. Thorough due diligence protects against such over-optimism.