I've said this many times, but I'll say it again.

Better identity would be a great boon to the technology industries. (Image from Region-Zero.Com.)

But we're not going to get there by making it mandatory, as the UK is trying to do. A poll there, where the government is trying to mandate identity cards over the next few years, shows 28% ready to demonstrate against the scheme, and 6% ready to go to prison rather than comply.

Yet better, more reliable identity is absolutely necessary to reduce crime, including terrorism.

So what do we do?

The keys are creating real benefits and private industry standards.

The model is the Citicorp credit card.

Citicorp found few objections, and increased market share, a few years ago when it started adding photographs to its credit cards. It's really a very poor biometric identifier. My friend Tommy's credit card still has him with dark, lustrous hair while in fact what remains has gone white, but no matter. The point is you don't make people do something, and instead just offer them an upgrade that's beneficial. (The carrot is from Texas A&M.)

The best place to start, IMHO, would be through a standard for smart cards, including biometric data, on health insurance cards. Patients would not only get cards that lasted two or three years, but they could breeze through the offices of participating doctors without filling out forms, even if they had never been there before. That's what I call a customer benefit.

If the standard by which the cards are created is open, and if the biometrics added to them are reasonable, you can then simply adapt the standard, in part, to other uses. In other words you don't take health information off the insurance card, but you have a standard for saving fingerprints and eye scans. These identifiers can then be added to, say, credit cards, starting with the best customers, at their option.

Then, finally, government can get involved, in areas like drivers' licenses and passports, following industry standards and offering special benefits -- faster passage through airport screening, for instance.

Carrots, people. Not sticks. And private, consensual, steady progress, not government fiat. That's the route to better identity.