By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON- Planned border crossing cards for Americans re-entering from Canada or Mexico may someday also carry drivers’ licenses and other identification information, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.
Chertoff denied that he was proposing a national identification card, such as those carried by citizens of many countries. By longtime tradition, national IDs are anathema to many Americans, who fear erosion of their privacy rights.
“It seems to me that we ought to try to be building toward an architecture where one card can do a number of different things for somebody so you don’t have to carry 10 cards,” he said Wednesday.
At issue is a wallet-sized biometric card called “PASS,” for People Access Security Service, which officials hope to start issuing by the end of 2006 but will not be required for another year.
The card is being offered as an alternative to a requirements that stemmed from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks for U.S. residents to show their passports on re-entry from Canada and Mexico by the end of 2007. Most Americans do not routinely obtain passports.
Currently, border crossers need only to show a driver’s license or birth certificate that proves nationality to enter the United States from Mexico and Canada.
The proposal still would require passports or certain other secure ID documents from Canadians, Mexicans and other foreign nationals entering the United States.
Canadian officials have criticized both the passport plan and the PASS cards as costly and cumbersome requirements that could thwart cross-border traffic and hurt border town economies.
Chertoff said better technology over the next decade could produce a card for U.S. residents that potentially could serve as a border pass, drivers’ license or even a security ID for entering federal buildings without lengthy screening processes.
The PASS cards, which officials estimated will cost half the price of a $97 (euro80) passport, will include a digital photo of its owner. Homeland Security anticipates they will hold in future years biometric information such as fingerprints or even DNA data.
Privacy rights experts are keeping a close watch on the plan for fear that personal information could be vulnerable.
“Just like a Social Security number can get copied today, a fingerprint could get copied tomorrow,” said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University and former Clinton administration privacy official. “And it’s real hard to get a new fingerprint.”
Addressing concerns about privacy rights, Chertoff said the new cards would do a better job of preventing identity theft than current drivers’ licenses.
“Anybody who thinks that the existing driver’s license is a robust privacy-protected form of ID is delusional,” Chertoff said. “It is not. You go back to 9/11 to see that; you can look at your own drivers’ licenses. We ought to be moving to something that is more secure.”