There has been more talk lately in the US about creating a national ID card.  The congress has passed a bill that will over the next few years make the States issue drivers licenses that are more uniform and are harder to replicate.  It seems to me that this is another instance where the governments are again behind private industry.  We already have multiple choices of Internatonal ID Cards.  Here are a couple:

And of course Mastercard.  Giant corporations carefully collect data on who is credit worthy and make very few mistakes.  A nation that wanted to securely ID all of its citizens could pay the credit card issuers to issue cards to all of the people who don’t already have one.

• For those who don’t want or don’t deserve credit the card could be for ID purposes only
• Private ID cards would solve the civil liberties questions because the governments would only have access to the data on a need to know basis, just like a merchant.
• The cost would be low because the infrastructure is in place.
• It would help to move us toward a cash free economy.
• The various issuers would compete to provide the service and drive prices down.

Another win win idea.