ABSTRACT

National identity cards are in the news. While paper ID documents have been used in some countries for a long time, today's rapid growth features high-tech IDs with built-in biometrics and RFID chips. Both long-term trends towards e-Government and the more recent responses to 9/11 have prompted the quest for more stable identity systems. Commercial pressures mix with security rationales to catalyze ID development, aimed at accuracy, efficiency and speed. New ID systems also depend on computerized national registries. Many questions are raised about new IDs but they are often limited by focusing on the cards themselves or on "privacy." 

Playing the Identity Card shows not only the benefits of how the state can "see" citizens better using these instruments but also the challenges this raises for civil liberties and human rights. ID cards are part of a broader trend towards intensified surveillance and as such are understood very differently according to the history and cultures of the countries concerned.

part |36 pages

Section One Setting the scene

chapter |18 pages

1 Playing the ID card

Understanding the significance of identity card systems

part |105 pages

Section Two: Plus ça change: Colonial legacies

chapter |18 pages

3 The elusive panopticon

The HANIS project and the politics of standards in South Africa

chapter |18 pages

4 China's second-generation national identity card

Merging culture, industry and technology

chapter |18 pages

Hong Kong's ‘smart' ID card

Designed to be out of control

chapter |19 pages

6 Atale of the colonial age, or the banner of new tyranny?

National identification card systems in Japan

chapter |16 pages

India's new ID card

Fuzzy logics, double meanings and ethnic ambiguities

part |108 pages

Section Three: Encountering democratic opposition

chapter |18 pages

9 Separating the sheep from the goats

The United Kingdom's National Registration programme and social sorting in the pre-electronic era

chapter |17 pages

Lifestyle television

Shifting motivations, static technologies

chapter |18 pages

14 Towards a National ID Card for Canada?

External drivers and internal complexities 1

part |29 pages

Section Four Transnational regimes

chapter |15 pages

ICAO and the biometric RFID passport

History and analysis

chapter |12 pages

16 Another piece of Europe in your pocket

The European Health Insurance Card