You can't refuse to be scanned by ICE's facial recognition app, DHS document say

This is going to be a huge pain. The US has a very fragmented identity system, and "move fast and break things" approaches like this to bring information from across government systems well outside the scope of what that information was collected for will result in real problems.

I worry what this app and systems like it might mean for me. I'm a US citizen, but I used to be an LPR. I never naturalized - I got my citizenship automatically by operation of law (INA 320, the child citizenship act). At some point I stopped being noodlesUK (LPR) and magically became noodlesUK (US Citizen), but not through the normal process. Presumably this means that there are entries in USCIS's systems that are orphaned, that likely indicate that I am an LPR who has abandoned their status, or at least been very bad about renewing their green card.

I fear that people in similar situations to my own might have a camera put in their face, some old database record that has no chance of being updated will be returned, and the obvious evidence in front of an officer's eyes, such as a US passport will be ignored. There are probably millions of people in similar situations to me, and millions more with even more complex statuses.

I know people who have multiple citizenships with multiple names, similar to this person: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45531721. Will these hastily deployed systems be able to cope with the complex realities of real people?

EDIT: LPR is lawful permanent resident, i.e., green card holder

Can someone remind me why this fragmented identity system is preferable to a National ID?

I get that nobody wants to be tracked by the government. But we are already being tracked... just imperfectly to the point where innocent people are being jailed.

The question should be how accurate do we want the government's data on us to be. And how much of our taxpayer money do we want to spend on companies like Palantir to fuzzy match our data across systems when we could simplify this all with a primary key.

This argument rings especially true in the U.S. where there is already a primary key in use every day. The SSN serves as a universal enumerator but without canonical data.

If the U.S. wanted to have a national ID system with rules, a defined scope, and redress procedures when things went wrong, and established it in the open, following a democratic process, I would be much happier.

The system we are getting instead has all the downsides of centralisation, with none of the upsides.

Well, in the 90s through the late 2000s there was a LOT of paranoia from the right, especially the evangelical right, as well as the milieu that is sorta called the "patriot movement" which includes minutemen militias, sovereign citizens, conspiracy theorists, separatists etc. regarding Government goons coming for them, "Mark of the Beast" stuff, and New World Order global cabals and what not. They even had magazines.[0] This is the precursor to the Obama FEMA Camp conspiracy theories (Which is ironic, since we are now building camps, just you know, for those people.)

Early 90's 2nd amendment anxiety, Ruby Ridge, assault weapon bans/Brady Bill and McVeigh's terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City propelled this stuff, and when we tried to impliment the national id (REAL ID Act) they very much flipped out, so they leaned on States Rights to shatter this notion, basically letting any state just not do it. 20 years later after REAL ID passed, you still don't need it unless you want to get on a plane.

It is highly ironic that the very same humans brains that constitute the right wing which railed against the REAL ID act are now basically demanding REAL ID Act. This is worth reflecting on.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20060702184553/http://www.nonati...

> 20 years later after REAL ID passed, you still don't need it unless you want to get on a plane

... or shop at Home Depot.

> It is highly ironic that the very same humans brains that constitute the right wing which railed against the REAL ID act are now basically demanding REAL ID Act

Ironic, coincidence, or all according to plan?

The so-called right wing has been being led around by the corporate lobbyist agenda for decades now. It's not a terrible stretch to imagine the same corpo political operatives that were behind the ratcheting authoritarian ID requirements are now behind the fascist kidnap squads as they tighten the noose around our society.

A bit paranoid and non-actionable, of course.