In my book Identity Crisis: How Identification is Overused and Misunderstood, I argue that identification is required of us too often by both corporations and government as we go about our business. I also do my best to articulate the reasons why this is bad, and how we can escape it.
With my senses tuned to the overuse of identification, I’m keenly aware of the osmotic process by which institutions soak up information about us, pass it around, and use it in ways we may not prefer.
Here’s an example from real life: I have recently spoken at several conferences dealing with identification, identity, financial risk management, and the like. When the time came to get reimbursement for my travel, one of the conference organizers asked me to give my Social Security Number if I was going to rely on faxed receipts for reimbursement.
The e‑mail thread below shows how complex IRS regulations require financial administrators in the corporate world to over-comply, collecting (and possibly filing with the government) information that neither entity needs.
This is bureaucracy in action (both public and private), and it’s the constant drip, drip, drip of privacy going away.
[Names have been changed to protect the guilty.]