Issue #204 | Aug. 20, 2009 | by Monica Kowl

At a Senate hearing last month, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), promoted biometrically enhanced E-Verify as part of the upcoming immigration reform bill.

Alice Lipowicz in the Washington Technology reports this “biometric identification program could be huge, potentially encompassing the entire U.S. workforce of 140 million employees. Naturally the biometrics industry is paying attention."

But hold on. Don't start your biometric division just yet.

E-Verify is a web-based employment eligibility verification (EEV) system managed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). All that is required now to validate a prospective employee is to enter an their Form I-9 online to compare that information with more than 444 million records in the Social Security Administration (SSA) database, and more than 60 million records in DHS immigration databases. Approximately 5% of employers currently use EEV services.

Unfortunately this system is only effective to a certain extent, as it has no way to verify that information provided by new hires is stolen or not. A 2006 study by the SSA inspector general showed there were 17.8 million errors in the agency’s database. That means that with the current system, millions of workers could be mistakenly ruled ineligible for work.

Bad economy adds greater urgency
In this economy it’s difficult to find a job. As unemployment exceeds 10-12% in some states, the incentive to ensure jobs are not being taken by illegal aliens is greater than ever. My friends who have recently graduated college were told when they began they’d start at $50-80,000 with their degree. Now some settle for jobs that pay $7 an hour. Menial jobs, which only underpaid illegal immigrants would perform in the past, sound better when it means feeding your family.

Adding fingerprinting to E-Verify is Schumer’s proposed solution. In the hearing, he stated, “Our system is badly broken . . . The E-Verify system, as presently constituted, cannot completely solve this problem.”

According to Washington Technology, “Schumer and other witnesses testified that E-Verify cannot detect identity theft and fraud, and it can be fooled by individuals who submit stolen Social Security numbers.”

“Obviously, it will be a big boost for the industry,” David Coleman, senior consultant at International Biometric Group told Lipowicz. She added, “Contractors are excited, but they also are tamping down their expectations while trying to sort through the political and social implications of the potential multibillion-dollar identity plan.”

Privacy likely to put on the brakes
Industry insiders speculate that individual fingerprints would be encrypted, in a digital format, stored in a database and/or embedded into a chip on a smart card. Employers would then be able to scan the job applicant’s fingerprints to verify it.

The 9/11 Commission called for national standards for drivers' licenses and birth certificates, since 18 of the 19 hijackers had state ID’s. The Real ID Act of 2005 called for providing a chip of encoded information, easily scanned, which seemed a valid solution for accuracy.

There was a major backlash in most of the country, however, with privacy concerns trumping security. As of May 2009, 23 state legislatures have approved resolutions not to participate in the program. The rest requested extensions for their decision until the end of this year. In addition to privacy, the main concerns with Real ID are high costs of changing over state systems and identity theft risks.

On RealNightmare.com, an anti-Real ID website, Beth Givens sums it up. “If you think identity theft is bad now, wait until something called the Real ID Act goes into effect. This law federalizes and standardizes state driver's licenses for all 50 states, and it will result in something that has been resisted in this country for a long time -- a de facto national identity card.”

The new incentives that might make biometrics Real
Privacy is no doubt a critical issue that must be considered. But Sen. Schumer’s website makes some important points to reform immigration which could propel the legislation he intends to introduce towards success.

He advocates we must achieve operational control of borders through significant additional increases in infrastructure, technology, and border personnel. The Senator stresses that, “a biometric-based employer verification system—with tough enforcement and auditing—is necessary to significantly diminish the job magnet that attracts illegal aliens to the United States and to provide certainty and simplicity for employers.”