American senators push for biometrics

American Senators John McCain and Chuck Schumer have said their framework for immigration reform could require biometric information to check employment status.

During a Politico Playbook Breakfast, McCain was asked if he was in favor of a “super Social Security card what would have some sort of biometric thing like a fingerprint,” to which McCain said, “”I’m for it,” The Huffington Post reports. 

Aptly, the Huffington Post also suggests that McCain and Schumer’s proposal sounds similar to Obama’s call in his immigration reform outline for a “fraud resistant, tamper-resistant” Social Security card as well as “new methods to authenticate identity.”

A recent Biometric Research Note indicates that the U.S. Electoral process could also benefit from a biometric solution, including mention of eID smart identity card adoption.

Another Biometric Research Note anticipates the market for electronic identity cards to reach US$5.2 billion by 2015.

Reported by Time magazine in 2010, Schumer and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham presented an immigration bill to Obama which included issuing a biometric ID to all working Americans, calling it an “enhanced Social Security card.”

There have been many recent deployments of this kind of electronic smart card for national identity in the past couple of years. Recently, the Republic of Azerbaijan selected Trüb for its national eID program.

Perhaps, most notably, in India, the Unique Identity Authority has been working to capture the biometrics of all of India’s population and distribute national “Aadhaar” cards.

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  biometrics  |  civil ID  |  elections  |  government  |  identification  |  national ID