Who am I, and how can I prove I'm not you?

There are lots of possible markers -- my retinal scan, my fingerprints, my photo, my DNA. There are technologies available to put these in my hand, on a card, or on a chip on a card. Thanks to computer technology these solutions are fairly inexpensive. They're not perfect, but they're efficient and getting better. They would at least get us in the game regarding identity theft.

Yet we resist. Americans, it turns out, really don't want to become identified, regardless of the cost.

Why? Because we don't trust politicians, say conservatives. Because we don't trust big business, say liberals. It makes for some strange bedfellows. This distrust overwhelms all our other instincts. Even after September 11. The one post-September 11 move that was pulled-back by March was a move toward a sounder system of national identity.

You're an Index Term

So identity theft is easy. To steal someone's life, all you need is an index term.

That's what a Social Security Number (SSN) is, a database index term. It's a nine-digit index term that dates from the mid-1930s, when databases were manipulated by punch card readers. (Usually IBM punch card readers.)

An index term is a key point in any database. It's a field that's filled-in for every database entry, and is unique to each entry. Without an index term a database falls apart. Social Security Numbers weren't meant to prove identity. They were meant to index just one database-that of the Social Security Administration. In fact the cards explicitly say they're not to be used as identifiers.

But the fact that each of us has a number, and each number is different, makes the "SSN" or "social" the perfect index term. So everyone uses them. They're the key to unlocking any American's identity. Or to creating one.

Yet they're terribly public. Every private company that's building a database of Americans, or checking a database of Americans, uses the "social" as its index term. This lets the private database be indexed and merged with other databases. That's why Americans are constantly asked for their "socials," by prospective employers, schools, doctors - even marketers. We're not supposed to give them out easily, but most of us do.

They're also very easy to get. While none of the September 11 hijackers were American citizens, most had socials. These weren't under aliases, but their own names. When you get a job, you get a social. (My kids had to get them when they were born.)

Once you have a social, you can find anything about anyone, with very little work. You can also become someone, even if you're an illegal alien. In finding the link above, for instance, I did a Google search, "September 11 hijackers had Social Security Numbers." Along with the results came three "sponsored links." One was for "Cybertrackertoolkit." "Need to verify or search for an SSN? No problem with Cyber Tracker."

This is not a secret. The Electronic Privacy Information Center has been fighting the over-use of socials for ages. Mostly they've been trying to make socials more private, and restrict business' use of them.

But business groups oppose this arguing that it would make routine business more difficult. They're right - what other universal index term do we have? What else could they key-on without the social?

One key a Social Security Number unlocks is our de-facto national identity card, also known as the state driver's license. To curb underage drinking states have been working for years to make these more tamper-proof. They now feature photos, and laminates have been replaced by solid plastic so kids can't paste their own photos on someone else's license.

But once you have a license you have a valid identity, an identity no one really questions. Until September 20 Virginia just required a co-signed state residency certificate to create a driver's license. The license then acts as a "breeder document" that can be used to get other cards, including Social Security Numbers. That's how the September 11 hijackers melted-in. You can also work it the other way. If you have some self-addressed mail and a Social Security Number, you can get a license. Then, no matter what the states do to protect their licenses - thumbprints, eye scans, signatures, photos - you're golden because you've got it.

Stopping It Takes Will

Can this be stopped? Maybe not entirely. But it can be fought, and it can be made much more difficult. We don't have to make identity theft or phony identity so drop-dead easy.

The problem is we lack the will.

There are opponents on both the left and right. Phyllis Schlafly, the grand doyenne of the American right, writes that a national identity program would be "about requiring individual American citizens to get government permission for traveling, banking, medical care, renting or buying housing, attending school or college, and even getting a job."

ACLU associate director Barry Steinhardt agrees. "A distributed national ID system in the form of a standardized driver's license will become a Frankenstein monster." Note that Steinhardt is fighting even the idea of making state drivers' license procedures, and their contents, more uniform.

Both Schlafly and Steinhardt admit that socials are overused. But they oppose a sounder system. They come at it from different perspectives - Steinhardt argues it wouldn't work while Schlafly argues it would work too well.

These kinds of arguments are bred in Americans' bones. They resonate, to use the political term. And it's not just here.

When British Home Secretary David Blunkett proposed such a card system for that country in April, only for government entitlement programs, he faced a storm of protest. Only a few countries like Belgium and Portugal make the use of such cards compulsory.

The arguments over there mirror those over here concerning identity. Racial minorities complain it will make them victims of harassment. Civil libertarians argue they'd be both too powerful and easily forged. Even in the wake of September 11, a move toward introducing national identity in Britain was shelved in the face of fierce opposition.

Even in big nations where identity cards are used, their use is limited. German identity cards carry a PIN number (like the one you use for your ATM card at the bank), but government databases can't share the information on the card. French police can ask you for identification but can't demand the national identity card. The Japanese system is much like our own - drivers' licenses are the default ID.

We Have 'Em, But...

This is the most hilarious thing about the whole identity mess. Despite our protests Americans do have a national index term and a national ID (in the form of a driver's license). Yet when we talk about strengthening these identifiers, making them harder to get or harder to misuse, we deny their reality and raise fears of corporate or government bogeymen in order to stop the reforms.

Don't believe me? Look at the President's latest "Homeland Security" plan. Only one part of that plan is drawing widespread opposition, a simple demand that state drivers' licenses be standardized.

A bill to do just that, using a biometric chip, was introduced in May. It has gone nowhere, buried in an obscure subcommittee.

The words of one bill opponent, the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), summarizes why. "Over the years HSLDA has been on the front lines working with member families and legislators to defeat past proposals similar to this bill. HSLDA will again work to stop legislation that infringes upon American's freedom and privacy."

The fact is that as Americans, no matter what our politics, we prefer bad identifiers. A March survey from Gartner Inc. found only 26% want a national identification system, while 41% oppose it.

We pretend that our bad identifiers protect us against the intrusions of government, or of corporations. But those databases exist, based on easily-forged, easily obtained, phony identification. The horse is out of the barn.

Until we're willing to step up to that reality, acknowledging the need for identity, identity that's universal and difficult to forge (I won't say impossible), then identity theft and phony identity will just grow and grow.

That's the way Americans want it.

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