900,000 people each year fall victim to identity theft. Making it the fasting growing crime in America. Is there anyway that future technology can prevent this statistic from climbing? In my essay, I intend to explain the effects of the future identification process, human bar coding. .
Computers in this day and age make the world go round. It is in these complex systems that the history and the entire existence of each American reside. Your social security number or I.D. number, is all that is needed in order to simply locate an individual through a computer system. This identification code according to the statistics is easily being tampered with and ruining many innocent lives. Bringing upon the idea of a more secure means of identification, human bar coding.
Life begins at birth with the promise of your own identity. Human bar coding will label new babies at birth, giving them a marking with a unique set of numbers to identify them by. Scanners, like those used by retailers, would precisely read the "bar codes" and determine the true identity of any even person. As a result, no one will be able to deviantly take on another's identity and life. .
Bar coding would also be a great benefit to law enforcement in terms of citizen surveillance. Your identity code would be scanned for daily activities such as getting gas or buying groceries, just like swiping your credit card. A record in the system would then keep track of all your personal activities and whereabouts. Resulting in a more efficient way of tracking and keeping American citizens safer.
Along those same lines, only American citizens would have bar codes. INS has recently reported that there are 7 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and they make up 70% of the total population. Bar coding would discourage immigrants from flocking to the United States illegally because they would have no identity or way to survive without one. Which in turn would positively effect the Untied States.