What is a national identification scheme (NIDS)?
Many different national identification schemes (NIDS) have been proposed. A key feature in all of them is that people in a particular country would be required, or at least expected, to present an officially issued ID card in order to obtain particular services or pass security checkpoints. Traditionally, NIDS have been used or proposed for handling routine administrative transactions between government agencies and citizens, with benefits claimed in the areas of convenience, cost savings or fraud reduction. NIDS could combine the functions of a driver’s license, social security registration, immigration documents, and other government-issued identification. Until recently, NIDS have not been suggested as a way to protect against terrorist attacks, partly because of inherent difficulties in achieving the required levels of security. Suddenly, in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, preventing terrorism is being touted as a possible use of NIDS. NIDS can either be ma
