There are many reasons why countries, small and large, are reviewing the needs for national identification cards.  Many of the reasons have to do with immigration, border control and some are simply economic.  When considering national identification cards for a country, it’s fairly simple to understand the perceived need to clearly identify someone’s nationality for reasons from employment to citizenship benefits.  Even when reviewing who should receive medical or any other service offered by a government to its citizens and to protect these services so they are not abused by individuals whose citizenship is with another country.

The only form of national identification is a printed piece of paper in many countries, and because of this many of these nations are reviewing their possibilities.  These documents are simple to forge since they don’t contain a picture or other identifying marks other than being the person holding the document. Reducing the abuse of services and controlling costs is reason enough to implement a national photo ID card and database.  Because of these needs and many others it is apparent that some of the information on the identification cards would include characteristics of the holder such as height, weight sex and eye color.  Some nations have included items such as retinal scan information and finger prints into the national database and into the identification cards themselves.

Some of the countries that are entertaining or beginning this process do not have an up to date account on its current residents or even census information on their citizens.  Implementing a national identification card into a country such as this allows for many other needed benefits, such as tracking the activity of its citizens when it comes to border crossings, criminal records, government employment history or military service.  Presently many of these countries have databases to track these items, but most are independent of each other.  Creating a national ID card would allow the merging of all of these databases into a common solution that would allow for a much simpler identification and review of an individual’s history.

Outsourcing has also been a topic of discussion as governments review their best solutions.  For many countries, undertaking the mammoth task of capturing data, taking pictures and providing identification cards to every citizen is too large for an administration to handle with their existing resources.  A few companies have been providing solutions for governments and FullIdentity.com is one of them.  Beyond providing identification cards, this company has been providing tracking solutions along side of ID card implementations for over seven years.   In many cases systems have been created for countries that are not only easy to employ, but also offer a financial benefit to the nations implementing these solutions.  In laymen’s terms, when outsourcing the ID card needs of a nation to a third party, the expenses are less than they would be if the government were to take the burden of deploying a solution internally.  Due to the discounted costs, the government can charge the citizens less for the identification cards and still have a financial gain to the country.  Initially, a country can profit by implementing a national system while protecting its resources in the long run.

Ultimately, when looking at the issue of implementing a national identification card system into a country from the prospective of the government, it is hard to find an economic reason not to move forward.  Yes, there are and will be advocates that claim that “big brother” is taking away our privacy and our rights.  And yes, privacy about our criminal records, border crossings, and military records is lost but shouldn’t these things be monitored by someone?  Shouldn’t a nation protect its citizenship benefits for just its citizens; or should it allow anyone to benefit from the government regardless of their own nationality?

About the Author:

Author of Personal Discipline: Tools for Consistent Success and founder of http://www.fullidentity.com and Virtual Tournament Director, Allen Richardson has been a leader in developing solutions for registration and ID cards for organizations for over seven years.  Additionally, he as served Southwest Airlines and Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway as a consultant for automation and internal development.