Public attitudes towards a national identity "smart card:" privacy and security concerns

Tracking technologies use pervasive information systems to scan and record the location of individuals and to transfer information about them to and from a central database. One potential application is a "smart" national identity card (NID). National polls have shown a strong majority of Americans favor an NID in recent months. This study uses a telephone poll with 400 respondents and semistructured interviews with 29 New Jersey adults to explore in depth the concerns and opinions that explain the "surface" opinion that is elicited with a single question. The results indicate that most people actually have very mixed feelings, with strong reservations about privacy and civil rights implications and also the security of the information on the card itself from theft or misuse.