David Lyon and hiscollaborators in the Surveillance Project have done it again. This collection is an outstanding contribution to our growing understanding of the place of surveillance in the lives of people around the globe. Eschewing a focus on the "usual suspects," the book offers a number of case studies analyzing the nature and development of identification systems in far-flung countries around the world, and the editors' introduction thoughtfully circumscribes the possible explanations for the varied range of policies identified by the comparative case studies.A signal achievement.

National identity cards are in the news. While paper ID documents have been used in some countries for a long time, today's rapid growth features high-tech IDs with built-in biometrics and RFID chips. Both long-term trends towards e-Government and the more recent responses to 9/11 have prompted the quest for more stable identity systems. Commercial pressures mix with security rationales to catalyse ID development, aimed at accuracy, efficiency and speed. New ID systems also depend on computerized national registries. Many questions are raised about new IDs but they are often limited by focusing on the cards themselves or on 'privacy'.

Playing the Identity Cardshows not only the benefits of how the state can 'see' citizens better using these instruments but also the challenges this raises for civil liberties and human rights. ID cards are part of a broader trend towards intensified surveillance and as such are understood very differently according to the history and cultures of the countries concerned.

This collection addresses a variety of issues in international and comparative perspective, bringing together articles on existing and proposed identity systems in countries around the globe as well as from the European Union and the International Aviation Authority (ICAO). The articles in the collection explore not only the technical and administrative dimensions but also the historical, international sociological and political economy perspective as well.

List of contributors

Preface and acknowledgments

SECTION ONE

Setting the scene

 1 Playing the ID card: Understanding the significance of

identity card systems

DAVID LYON AND COLIN J. BENNETT

 2 Governing by identity

LOUISE AMOORE

SECTION TWO

Plus ca change: Colonial legacies

 3 The elusive panopticon: The HANIS project and the

politics of standards in South Africa

KEITH BRECKENRIDGE

4 China's second-generation national identity card:

Merging culture, industry and technology

CHERYL L. BROWN

5 Hong Kong's 'smart' ID card: Designed to be out of control

GRAHAM GREENLEAF

6 Atale of the colonial age, or the banner of new tyranny?

National identification card systems in Japan

MIDORI OGASAWARA

7 India's new ID card: Fuzzy logics, double meanings and ethnic ambiguities

TAHA MEHMOOD

 8 Population ID card systems in the Middle East:The case of the UAE

ZEINAB KARAKE-SHALHOUB

SECTION THREE

Encountering democratic opposition

 9 Separating the sheep from the goats: The United Kingdom's

National Registration programme and social sorting in the pre-electronic era

SCOTT THOMPSON

 10 The United Kingdom identity card scheme: Shifting motivations, static technologies

DAVID WILLS

 11 The politics of Australia's 'Access Card'

DEAN WILSON

 12 The INES biometric card and the politics of national identity assignment in France

PIERRE PIAZZA AND LAURENT LANIEL

 13 The United States Real ID Act and the securitization ofidentity

KELLY GATES

 14 Towards a National ID Card for Canada? External drivers and internal complexities

ANDREW CLEMENT, KRISTA BOA, SIMON DAVIES AND GUS HOSEIN

SECTION FOUR

Transnational regimes

 15 ICAO and the biometric RFID passport: History and analysis

JEFFREY M. STANTON

 16 Another piece of Europe in your pocket: The European

Health Insurance Card

WILLEM MAAS

Index