World’s first mandatory ‘smart’ identity card

The Malaysian government can now track its citizens more efficiently after passing law that requires all Malaysians to carry a smart card, containing identity records which include fingerprints, according to

The Malaysian government can now track its citizens more efficiently after passing law that requires all Malaysians to carry a smart card, containing identity records which include fingerprints, according to New Scientist .

Planned uses for the Malaysian national ID card include money transfer authorisations, and 'identify[ing] people to authorities' – which sounds suspiciously like a nice way of saying 'tracking people's day to day activities.'

Many countries are re-examining their security methods in light of recent events in America. Australia itself has developed smart card technology – specifically, a medical smart card developed by researchers at the University of Newcastle (PC Authority, October 2001). The card is capable of holding a patients' entire medical record in an encrypted state. It also incorporates authorisation technology, which enables different people to have different levels of access to records stored on each card.

This type of research could easily be applied to any type of national ID scheme. Everything from your driving record through to your career details could eventually be stored on one single card that is used universally for a number of services throughout the country.

Hopefully, citizens of other countries considering the use of national ID cards will smack them down with the same force Australians did when the Australia Card was preposed back in the mid-eighties. National ID cards, smart or not, will not help to reduce terrorism. After all, if someone is not already wanted by authorities for some reason, a smart card will not stop them getting onto an airplane with a bomb.

Something else that should be considered is that, as with normal passports, any form of national smart card ID will most likely be forgeable. You may not be able to modify existing cards (thanks to encryption, digital signatures, MD5 hashes etcettera), but it shouldn't be too hard for professional criminals and terrorists to obtain the false documentation, such as birth certificates, needed to obtain a smart national ID card.

Regardless of what governments tell their citizens about potential smart card technology, one thing remains certain. Smart cards, in all their guises, open up a whole new world of risks to and abuses of, our personal privacy.