In my opinion the poster is correct: uploading one of the many state issued identification cards, all which vary quite a lot, is not going to solve this problem.
You could deepfake someone in realtime using publicly available photos. I don't know what the answer is, but photo biometrics sounds like a, "this can't possibly be hacked because I wouldn't know how to hack it scenario". Like when a naive person takes a jumble of shift, xor, and, to create a random number generator and then it turns out it has a cycle of 1024.
This is just verification though, all the communication goes directly to government after it...
Might require issuing some type of new ID number for each citizen, but once that is in place it would massively simplify all the processes.
Clearly you haven't used system like this - it's pretty sophisticated sequence of light flashes to manages to somehow fingerprint that you'r not faking it.
Used it in few systems for years and it works great. One of them scanned my passport via NFC, another one just asked my details (name, DOB).
These physical tokens can be as simple as a randomly-generated QR-code, or a full and proper PKI physical token / smartcard system (or anything in between).
Furthermore, USPS needs more traffic / package deliveries (especially since its lost Amazon as a customer). Increasing the amount of goods flowing around physically in the USPS system is definitely a benefit, especially if its for ensuring the physical security of these hypothetical security tokens.
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IE: The USPS is uniquely situated to become a premier ID of the US government. Certainly more situated than the current standard, the Social Security Administration. Or the loose confederation of ~48 "RealID" state drivers license.
I remember common discussion of this in the early 90s, so way more than 10 years.
It does make a lot of sense. For the vast majority of people the local post office is the nearest federal government office. And the post office already handles passport applications.
Not accurate. I live very close to San Francisco, but I have to get my mail at a Post Office because the USPS doesn't deliver to my door.
It doesnt work here. As a progressive we keep chasing these goals and somehow they simply get perverted to be even worse for the taxpayer in the end. i.e. you must have RealID however you must also pay for RealID. You can get paid time off from work to vote or benefits if you have a job, but only if you're a full time employee. Womp! a ton of people are no longer full time employees
How do we find our way out?
America, it feels like, is egalitarian in the fact that we all have the ability to sell our souls to be rich. Some folks have a headstart certainly, but there are less blocks to our success than there are in places where family pedigree and class play an even bigger role from England and France to India and S. Korea.
Let’s say we have a system where 40 hours worked = 1 day PTO:
- the business may choose to split the 40 hours among 4 employees working 10 hours each.
- however, needing to hire more employees to cover the same 40 hours (which one person alone could have handled in the legacy system) increases training and recruiting costs 4x (worst case hopefully) for each role.
- instead of circumventing the PTO “cost” altogether, the businesses would be forced to budget for it no matter how creative they get with staffing.
- budget-wise, the increased cost of PTO would effectively also be increasing the hourly wage. Further forcing businesses to scrutinize the roles they offer and question if it is really necessary to have a human being perform that function.
It almost looks like you've seen some familiar words and decided to dump your objections to imagined American backwardness compared to Europe, even though the matter in question has absolutely nothing to do with it.
The former is about the government fixing its own mess, the latter foists responsibility for dysfunctional government systems onto individuals who may or may not do the correct song and dance to please whichever agency they’re dealing with. If we’re going to demand photo ID everywhere, the government should fix its own crap first before demanding more of the citizens.
I’d be fine with getting a federal ID and using it for my taxes. I’m deeply opposed to having to provide my own photo to fill out my taxes, especially since if they’re unhappy with my photo for whatever inscrutable reason, they can throw me in jail for not doing my taxes right.
This almost starts to sound like an Onion article: "No way this can possibly work," Americans saying about yet another system implemented by virtually every nation in the Western World(TM).
The whole point of a national photo ID system is that it's the government's responsibility to provide its every citizen a functional ID. Which has its shortcomings, but it's miles better than everyone implementing their own ID system anyway in incompatible ways and then all citizens trying to figure out which one to use where.
There's a strong parallel with a national healthcare system, which is also objected by a lot of Americans on the ground that the mythical government will never get it right.