"Lyon's view is nuanced and he is conscious of the multipleexpressions of citizenship beyond identification. He carefullydetails the increasingly interoperable databases which sustainidentification cards, reiterating throughout that the card itselfis only the tip of the iceberg.„
Canadian Journal of Sociology
“Lyon brilliantly mixes precise distinctions with experimentalinferences to make legible the current status of technology-drivenidentification systems and their future potential for sortingcitizens.„
Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, and author ofTerritory, Authority, Rights
“ID cards are an issue of growing concern in many countries. David Lyon provides fresh perspectives and many new insights intothe way these systems work and the consequences they have forindividuals and society. The clear, compelling and informativewriting makes the book attractive to both specialists and thegeneral reader.„
Charles Raab, University of Edinburgh
“With an admirably lucid and clear style David Lyon shows hownew technologies of identification govern new divisions of citizensand their others (strangers, outsiders, aliens) by decoding(biometric) and sorting (categorical) bodies. It also brilliantlyillustrates how struggles for citizenship must now be also foughtthrough databases (increasingly owned and controlled by 'cardcartels') that make such technologies possible."
Engin Isin, Open University
New ID systems are „new“ because they are high-tech. But their newness is also seen crucially in the ways that theycontribute to new means of governance. The rise of e-Government andglobal mobility along with the aftermath of 9/11 and fears ofidentity theft are propelling the trend towards new ID systems. This is further lubricated by high technology companies seekinglucrative procurements, giving stakes in identification practicesto agencies additional to nation-states, particularly technical andcommercial ones. While the claims made for new IDs focus onsecurity, efficiency and convenience, each proposal is alsocontroversial. Fears of privacy-loss, limits to liberty, governmentcontrol, and even of totalitarian tendencies are expressed bycritics.
This book takes an historical, comparative and sociological lookat citizen-identification, and new ID cards in particular. Itconcludes that their widespread use is both likely and, withoutsome strong safeguards, troublesome, though not necessarily for thereasons most popularly proposed. Arguing that new IDs demand newapproaches to identification practices given their potential forundermining trust and contributing to social exclusion, David Lyonprovides the clearest overview of this topical area to date.
