Yesterday, I took Amy downtown to get a criminal record check. The lady at the till said she needed two pieced of id, one photo and one other. Amy only had one photo id. The lady wouldn't perform the criminal record check, but suggested we take the photo id down the street to the Alberta health care people and have them print off an Alberta health card. At the Alberta health place, the lady gave us a heath card based solely on Amy's photo id. We went back to the police station and the lady there started the wheels in motion to get the criminal record check done.
It got me to thinking, if you have an id with your picture and someone else's information on it, nothing prevents you from getting a Alberta Health Care card. Not even the bus fare to get there, because the C-Train is free downtown. The lady at the police station was the one who suggested getting the heath care card, she told us that the train was free downtown, and she knew that we could get a card based only on a photo id that wasn't strong enough on its own to get a criminal record check.
There must be an analogy to significant digits in science, or possibly the weakest link in a chain.
Basically, there is nothing preventing FOIP violations, or identity theft for that matter, besides getting the first id that will allow you to get the second no questions asked, and you can follow that on down the line to any number of other cards and numbers that supposedly identify us.
Now I can see why people are against national id cards in the USA. They won't do anything to prevent terrorism, but they will make identity theft that much easier because there will be one more card that people blindly put their faith in.
-Gary Milner
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