E-Verify, the proposed national employment verification system, seeks to create a Federal IT system where employers would be required to match employee records against various federal databases to confirm identity and employment eligibility. Given the proposed scope of this program, there are significant challenges with ensuring privacy and security of user records as well as addressing accuracy of records with potentially conflicting data. There are also scalability and access issues that must be addressed before any new mandatory identity verification system could be deployed.
Computing professionals have often witnessed large-scale federal information technology projects such as this start with good intentions but fail under the weight of design flaws and overambitious goals. The state-of-practice for building such large systems and satisfying security, reliability, survivability and guaranteed real-time performance is not dependable. Because the envisioned employment verification system would control the access of all native and foreign-born citizens to employment in the United States, it would have to be very carefully designed and tested if it is to be adequately secure, reliable, accurate and respectful of privacy.
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