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National ID System and Information Privacy

March 11, 2005

All this talk about National IDs and invasion of privacy is a reflection of the people’s lack of trust in the government. What fuels this mistrust is the absence of any controls limiting the ability of government to access the aggregated data.

But the debate has confused (perhaps left to the back burner) the critical difference between the existence of centralized databases and access to the data. People just assume that centralized databases means unfettered access. This is not necessarily true. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court in Ople v. Torres (striking down the earlier national ID system) added fuel to this fire. Even though the majority recognizes that the violation of the right to privacy is potential, it still concluded that the Ramos administrative order violated the Constitution. Now, I’m not a Constitutional Law expert but it seems to me that if no right has been violated, then there is no opportunity for the Court to exercise its power. In legalease, there is no “justiciable controversy” — this means that the courts are not permitted to intervene unless there is an actual violation of a right. But in Ople v. Torres, there was no actual invasion of privacy. Here’s what the Court said:

“Given the record-keeping power of the computer, only the indifferent will fail to perceive the danger that A.O. No. 308 gives the government the power to compile a devastating dossier against unsuspecting citizens.”

Noone’s record had been compromised. Noone’s right to privacy had been violated. Noone had been discriminated against, oppressed, harrassed, or otherwise molested by the system. The Court ruled on the basis of “WHAT IF.” (more…)

Posted by JJ Disini at 11:07 am | permalink | comments[2]