A New Hampshire company's 1997 plan to create a national identity database for Uncle Sam ranges wider than first believed, says a leading online privacy watchdog.
Newly-released documents show Image Data's contract with the Secret Service involved a lot more than what was told when the deal was reported earlier this year, says Wired. And it's caused some heat between the company and three states as well.
The $1.5 million contract to start digitizing driver's license and other personal data stressed pilot projects in three states would "ensure the viability of deploying such service throughout the United States," say some 300 pages the Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Earlier this year, Image Data scoffed at any idea that legitimate privacy issues were at stake, says Wired, but privacy watchdogs aren't backing off the alarms. "We think that their proposal for a national database of photographs runs directly contrary to the types of privacy safeguards that should be developed," says EPIC director Mark Rotenberg, whom Wired says met with Image Data CEO Robert Houevener - who claims himself a victim of identity fraud.
Houvener insists his company's plan involves nothing more than another way to target identity criminals he says cost businesses billions annually. Wired also says American lawmakers who financed the project thought the photo database would be used to stop terrorists and illegal immigrants.
But the magazine's Web site also says that, following news reports focusing on the project, the governors of Colorado and Florida stopped sending images to Image Data, and South Carolina sued for the return of millions of images already in Image Data's possession.
The database plan seems also to have chilling implications regarding tax blackmail, according to the documents EPIC obtained. They also show, Wired says, how Image Data was planning to sell the idea to state governments as well, as "a highly effective way of…increasing tax revenue…Once government agencies and businesses see the effectiveness of this technology and implement it for their own programs, the positive impact to state and federal budgets will be in the billions of dollars per year."
