Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/9450
Thursday, April 22, 2010 – Daily News – 3B High-tech ID proposed for all through Biometrics CHICAGO (MCT) — Because she was born in Chicago, Karen Peisker never imagined her bosses at the United Parcel Service would suddenly question her right to work in the country legally. But last month, an electron- ic employee verification sys- tem flagged the mail truck dri- ver for possible identity fraud because she had been using her married name, Rivera, on her driver's license since 2007. Though Peisker joined the company in 1985, it put her at risk of being fired until she proved she was who she said she was. "I couldn't believe it," said Peisker, 50, who repeatedly had to show up to work with her birth certificate, marriage license and U.S. passport until the confusion was cleared up. Not uncommon, such prob- lems with the federal E-verify software system — intended to pluck illegal immigrants out of the work force — have led to proposals for a more wide- reaching solution that could be as culturally transformative as it is controversial. Until recent- ly, it also might have seemed as futuristic as a Steven Spielberg movie thriller. Two U.S. senators promi- nent in immigration reform efforts have proposed that all Americans be issued biometric Social Security cards, contain- ing codified data from either a fingerprint or retinal scan to help employers determine whether the holder is legal. In explaining the only cur- rent bipartisan reform propos- al, Sen. Charles Schumer, D- N.Y., has called such a high- tech Social Security card "a linchpin" in efforts to win sup- port in Congress for fixing an immigration enforcement sys- tem that many agree is broken. Immigrant advocates are push- ing for action on immigration reform this year, and the Obama administration has expressed support, though many analysts doubt the cur- rent political climate is con- ducive. While details are still sketchy, Schumer and Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., have proposed that the new Social Security card be swiped by employers through a machine to match a fingerprint or some other personal biometric fea- ture against data stored on computers. Those who refuse to cooperate or otherwise knowingly hire unauthorized workers would face fines and even prison. Privacy groups call the idea chilling, and costly. Last week, 44 organizations sent a letter of protest to the White House and both senators, arguing that implementation of a biometric card could cost "hundreds of billions of dollars." Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, labeled the proposal a form of "mission creep" that would pull the country down a dangerous path. "We think that card would quickly spread to other purpos- es from voting to gun owner- ship to travel, and it will really be a permission slip for partic- ipating in American life," Cal- abrese said. Schumer and Graham have taken pains to address the pri- vacy concerns. In an outline published last month in The Washington Post, they said biometric information would only be stored on the card and not warehoused in any govern- ment database, though critics argue that biometric informa- tion would have to be stored somewhere to prevent identity fraud or to confirm a person's identity in the event of a lost Social Security card." The cards would not contain private information or tracking devices, the legislators assert- ed. In a rare meeting of minds, some advocates on both sides of the combative reform debate are open to the idea. "We need to know who's working in the United States, The dispute illustrated a quandary for employers, who find themselves navigating between immigration laws and federal labor and discrimina- tion laws. In recent years, many companies have been accused of overreacting to E- verify by grilling workers whose names were flagged, or pre-emptively firing them before they had a chance to prove they're legal. "You can, as an employer, be kind of betwixt and between in terms of asking for too much information or not asking enough," said Mike Aitken, director of government affairs for the Society for Human Resource Management, a Vir- ginia-based umbrella group for 250,000 human resource pro- fessionals. Aitken's group opposes E- and we need to make it easy," argued U.S. Rep. Luis Gutier- rez, D-Ill. Dan Stein, president of the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports reduc- ing all immigration, said: "We, in principle, are not averse to the application of technology responsibly used." The embrace of the biomet- ric Social Security card idea lies at least partly in frustra- tions surrounding the E-verify system, a 13-year-old federal program that is mandated for employers by some states. Nearly 200,000 companies use E-verify, with about 1,000 new employers signing up per week, U.S. officials say. Last September, the Obama admin- istration began requiring that 26,500 federal contractors and subcontractors sign up. The E-verify software sys- tem checks an employee's identification by matching the documents provided by that worker against Social Security Administration records. In cases where there is a "mis- match," the worker has eight days to prove their identity or risk being fired. But in 4 percent of cases, Paid advertisement the system wrongly flags legal workers for potential fraud. And in a January evaluation for the Department of Homeland Security, it failed to flag illegal workers using fake IDs more than half the time. In Chicago, anger over the system fueled a protest earlier this month in front of UPS's distribution center on the Near West Side. There, workers fired for refusing to submit their IDs to be electronically confirmed were among a small crowd staging a 24-hour "hunger strike." Company officials wouldn't say how many employees were fired for not cooperating, though union representatives at UPS said the total is at least 90. Some protestors accused the company of using E-verify only to get rid of workers it can no longer afford in a bad econ- omy. UPS spokesman Norman Black said the Atlanta-based company of 340,000 employ- ees is required as a federal con- tractor to use E-verify. "I had to do (submit to verification) it. Everybody in headquarters had to do it. Everybody in the country had to do it," Black said. verify and a biometric Social Security card. Instead, the group has lobbied for federal legislation that would incorpo- rate a biometric approach sim- ilar to what Wall Street corpo- rations and high-security com- panies use — systems in which data is stored privately and expunged at a worker's request. Gerri Ratliff, who oversees E-verify at U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, said her agency is evaluating whether a biometric approach could be incorporated into the existing software — even if immigra- tion reform efforts stall again this year. Already, the E-verify system checks photos on green cards and other IDs issued by Homeland Security, she said. For Peisker, a mail trailer truck driver who now has switched back to using her maiden name because of the E- verify problem, the whole identification discussion is dis- turbing. "I do not have an ATM card. I do not have automatic deposit. I do not have anything that puts my name on a com- puter with a Social Security number, if I could help it," Peisker said. "I'm really upset about this."