Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) signaled their intent to co-sponsor a bill that would require all US workers to have Social Security ID cards linked to biometric data. The proposed bill would require such IDs regardless of the workers citizenship status.

The two senators announced their plans in an op-ed piece in last Friday’s Washington Post, urging a change to such a system in an effort to secure US borders and help “employers [that] are burdened by a complicated system for verifying workers' immigration status”. The biometric Social Security cards are on of “four pillars” in the bipartisan plan to reform the nation’s immigration system, and will be used to deny employment to illegal aliens within US borders.

“We would require all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security card”, the two lawmakers noted in their opinion piece. Schumer and Graham would then attempt to ease the fears of what is often a skeptical American public when it comes to personal privacy issues: “Each card's unique biometric identifier would be stored only on the card; no government database would house everyone's information. The cards would not contain any private information, medical information or tracking devices. The card would be a high-tech version of the Social Security card that citizens already have.”

Regardless of the plan, which attempts to address the issue of securely storing biometric information, there are pros and cons to such a proposal. Because the plan proposes to store information only on the card, both a person’s Social Security number and personal unique identifying information, such as fingerprints or retinal scans, could be entered into the public domain should a person lose it. However, the use of Social Security cards explicitly linked to uniquely identifying biometric information could help reduce certain forms of identity theft.