I do not need a national ID card in my own land. It would be like carrying a key to unlock internal doors in my own home.

Those visiting this country on visa need the ID card. Further, that issued ID to immigrants should also act as their debit card, drivers license and green card. It should lose or change color and cease to function when it expires.

Proving citizenship BEFORE issuing welfare benefits would help. Believe it or not it was forbidden (under Nappy) to ask citizenship when applying for welfare in Arizona. I'm not sure if thats still the case, I hope not.

This is an issue that I find myself on both sides of. Clearly I don't want to have the government track me and all aspects of my life.

On the other hand, as we build medical systems which interconnect we are continually faced with the problem of whether this "Jim Smith" is the same as this other "Jim Smith". Failure to properly match records can have life-threatening consequences.

Some of our systems are in countries which do have a national id number, most notably Malaysia which uses a smart MYKAD card for pretty much everything -- passport, banking, healthcare etc.

This makes building reliable health care systems much easier. It's also a privacy nightmare. Would I want to be carrying one of these cards? I'm not sure.