The History of Identity Documents — A 3-Part Series

• Part 1: From Ancient Identity Records to Medieval Passports
• Part 2: When Governments Started Recording Faces (current article)
• Part 3: From Genealogy to Digital Databases

The History of Identity Documents (Part 2): When Governments Started Recording Faces

In the winter of 1879, a junior clerk at the Paris Prefecture of Police sat before a pile of paperwork. This 26-year-old named Alphonse Bertillon was assigned the tedious task of sorting criminal record cards. At the time, when the Paris police re-arrested a criminal, there was almost no way to determine whether he had been caught before. Names could be changed, and physical descriptions were far too subjective. A description like “tall man, brown hair, blue eyes” could apply to tens of thousands of people in Paris alone.^[1]

Bertillon was different. Influenced by his father, a statistician, and his grandfather, an anthropologist, he conceived the idea of reducing the human body to numbers. Once a person reaches adulthood, the dimensions of their bones do not change. Height, arm length, foot size, head width, ear shape — the combination of these measurements is essentially unique. He proposed this idea to his superiors, and was initially ignored.^[1] But after persistent persuasion, in February 1882 he was granted permission to run a small experiment.

Three months later, he achieved his first breakthrough. He identified a repeat offender who had been re-arrested under a different name, using body measurement data.^[1] From that moment, the era in which the state began recording the human body as data had begun.

Faces on Paper — The Limits Before Photography

As we saw in Part 1, for thousands of years identity verification depended on documents and testimony. A letter bearing the king’s seal, a merchant’s signature, a witness’s guarantee — these proved a person’s identity. But this system had a fundamental flaw: it could not verify the face of the person in question.

Up through the 18th century, physical descriptions in passports read something like this: “Age approximately 35, medium height, brown hair, oval face, blue eyes, ordinary nose, small scar on forehead.” Even with such a description, the border guard’s task of matching it to the person standing before them was highly subjective. If a document was stolen or forged, someone else could use it.^[2]

As European cities grew rapidly in the mid-19th century, this problem became increasingly serious. London’s population grew from around one million in 1800 to 6.5 million by 1900. Paris expanded at a similar pace. In the city, nobody knew their neighbors. If identity verification in rural communities relied on “everyone knowing everyone,” cities needed a way to confirm identity among strangers.^[3]

When the daguerreotype was invented in 1839 and photography spread quickly, police immediately recognized the possibilities. From the 1850s, the practice of photographing criminals emerged. But photographs alone were not enough. Finding a specific individual among thousands of photo albums was no different from searching for a needle in a haystack.^[4]

Bertillon’s System — Fixing Identity with Science

The system Bertillon introduced in 1882 was a combination of two innovations. One was anthropometry (also called the Bertillon system), and the other was standardized criminal photography.

In anthropometry, eleven bodily measurements were recorded: height and seated height, the length and width of the head, the size of the right ear, the length of the left foot, the length of the left middle and little fingers, the length from elbow to fingertip, and the width of the cheeks. To these were added eye color, hair color, skin tone, and distinctive features such as unusual scars or tattoos.^[1]

Bertillon also standardized photography. Two shots were taken — one frontal, one profile — at a standard distance and with standard lighting. This is the origin of what we today call a “mugshot.” Thanks to this standard format, photographs could be systematically compared and stored.^[4]

The system quickly proved successful. In 1884 alone, the Bertillon system re-identified 241 repeat offenders. In 1892, the French government officially adopted the system, and soon police authorities across Europe and the Americas followed.^[1]

However, the system had inherent limitations. Measurements were only accurate when taken by trained personnel in a standardized manner. When done by inexperienced operators, errors crept in. And a decisive incident cracked the system’s credibility.

In 1903, a man named Will West was admitted to Leavenworth Prison in Kansas, USA. The officer began taking Bertillon measurements. When the numbers were checked against the database, a card already existed for someone named William West. The two men’s measurements were nearly identical. But when prison records were checked, William West was already incarcerated there. The two were identical twins.^[5] This incident exposed the fact that the Bertillon system could not distinguish between two people with identical body measurements. The fingerprints of the two men, however, were completely different.

Information at the Fingertip — How Fingerprints Changed Identity Verification

The idea of using fingerprints for identity verification did not belong to any single person. In 1880, Scottish physician Henry Faulds, while assisting in an archaeological excavation in Japan, discovered traces of a potter’s fingerprints on ancient pottery and contributed a paper on the uniqueness of fingerprints to the scientific journal Nature.^[6] That same year, William Herschel, a British administrator working in India, published the results of 30 years of fingerprint observation, claiming he had already introduced the practice of having contract parties imprint their fingerprints as early as 1858.^[6]

The dispute over priority between the two men ultimately troubled them both. But it was English anthropologist Francis Galton who developed this idea into a science applicable to criminal investigation. In his 1892 book Fingerprints, Galton presented statistical evidence that fingerprints do not change throughout a person’s lifetime, and that the probability of two people having identical fingerprints is only 1 in 64 billion.^[7]

The person who actually introduced fingerprints into criminal investigation was Edward Henry. As Inspector General of Police in Bengal, India, he built upon Galton’s research to develop a classification system for fingerprints — arches, loops, and whorls — which he introduced in 1897.^[7] Henry returned to Britain in 1901 and established a fingerprint department at Scotland Yard. This “Henry Classification System” spread around the world.

In 1902, there was the first case in Britain of a murderer being charged based on fingerprint evidence. In 1905, the first guilty verdict in a murder case based solely on fingerprint evidence was delivered.^[7] The Bertillon system rapidly lost credibility after the 1903 West twins incident, and was replaced by fingerprint systems in most countries by the 1920s.

Interestingly, fingerprints were first used for identity verification not in criminal investigation, but as a guarantee for contract compliance. Herschel’s practice of having illiterate parties in India imprint their fingerprints was partly because they could not sign, but also because of the psychological expectation that leaving a fingerprint would make them take the contract more seriously.^[6] The tools of identity verification are, initially, almost always born for a different purpose.

War Made the Passport

Up through the 19th century, a passport was not strictly necessary to cross a border. During the era of free trade from 1850 to 1914, many European countries operated their borders relatively openly. A passport was convenient, but in many cases one could pass without one.^[8]

On June 28, 1914, a gunshot rang out in Sarajevo. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated, and within a month most of Europe was at war. Nations immediately closed their borders and began controlling the movement of foreigners. Fear spread that spies and enemy forces could cross borders disguised as travelers.^[8]

Britain passed the Aliens Restriction Act in August 1914. France, Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary all took similar measures. Suddenly the passport was no longer optional but mandatory. And a critical problem emerged: the passports of different countries varied wildly in format and content. Some countries’ passports were a single sheet of parchment; others were folded booklets. Some included photographs; others did not.^[9]

After the war, the international community needed to sort out this chaos. In 1920, an international conference on passports and customs formalities was held in Paris under the auspices of the League of Nations. This conference standardized passport specifications internationally for the first time: a 32-page booklet format, dimensions of 15.5 cm × 10.5 cm, and mandatory attachment of a photograph.^[9]

Photographs first appeared in passports slightly before this conference. The United States began officially requiring passport photographs in 1914, and Britain made photograph attachment mandatory from 1915.^[8] But the 1920 conference made this an international standard. It was from this point that recording the face became an essential feature of travel documents.

It is worth noting that the 1920 conference’s aim was not to make travel freer. After the war, Europe was overrun with refugees, displaced persons, and stateless individuals. Passport standardization was above all a means for the state to manage and control this chaotic movement.^[9]

The Dark Uses of Identity Documents — Tools of State Violence

As identity verification technology advanced, states used it in ever more sophisticated ways to suppress specific groups. 20th-century history provides many examples of how identity documents could be repurposed as instruments of persecution.

Nazi Germany’s Identity Marking System

As the Nazis came to power in 1933, Germany’s identity document system gradually became a tool for the persecution of Jews. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 provided the legal basis for stripping Jews of their legal status. In 1938, two measures were implemented in succession.

First, in August 1938, a decree was passed requiring Jewish men to add “Israel” before their legal name, and Jewish women to add “Sara.” This was a measure to distinguish Jews whose names did not reveal their religious identity.^[10]

Second, in October 1938, in response to a request from the Swiss government, Germany began stamping Jewish passports with a red “J.” Switzerland wanted to distinguish the growing number of Jewish refugees and limit their entry. Heinrich Rothmund, head of the Swiss Federal Police, brought this proposal to Berlin, and the Nazi authorities immediately accepted it.^[10]

What makes this case particularly chilling is that the “J” stamp on Jewish passports began not at Nazi request, but at the request of neutral Switzerland. The meaning of an identity document is determined not by those who created it, but by the system that uses it.

The Soviet Internal Passport System

In 1932, the Soviet Union introduced an internal passport system to control domestic movement. All urban residents received internal passports, but peasants tied to collective farms (kolkhozy) were initially not issued passports.^[11] Without a passport, movement to the city was impossible. In effect, peasants were bound to the collective farm.

The Soviet internal passport contained a “nationality” (natsional’nost’) entry. Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish, Chechen — ethnic identity was inscribed in the identity document. Later, this information was used to identify specific groups for Stalin’s policies of ethnic forced deportation.^[11]

South Africa’s Apartheid Pass Laws

In South Africa, the repressive use of identity documents was even more blatant. As the apartheid system was formally established in 1948, Black South Africans were required to carry at all times an identity document known as a “passbook.”^[12] This document contained the holder’s name, photograph, fingerprints, employer’s signature, and residential permit information.

Without a passbook, one could not leave a designated area. Being stopped by police without a passbook on one’s person meant immediate detention. The Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 was an incident in which police opened fire on a crowd during an anti-pass law protest, killing 69 people.^[12]

In 1986, the apartheid government finally abolished the pass laws — but this came after the racial segregation system had already begun to collapse. For decades, the passbook was the most direct tool for controlling the daily lives of Black South Africans.

Called by a Number — The American Social Security Number

In November 1936, the US government introduced a new form of identity verification: the Social Security Number (SSN). There is a story that the very first number issued, 001-01-0001, was assigned on November 24 of that year to a man named John Swanson living in New London, New Hampshire — but in reality the first number holder was Grace Dorothy Owens of New York.^[13]

The Social Security Number was not originally a national identity document. It was introduced as an administrative tracking number for paying retirement pensions, following the Social Security Act of 1935. The card explicitly stated “NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION.”^[13]

But the number gradually began to be used for more and more purposes. A 1943 executive order from President Roosevelt required federal agencies to use the SSN for employee records. In 1961, SSN use became mandatory for tax filings. From the 1970s, banks, hospitals, and employers began requiring the SSN as a means of identity verification.^[13]

The SSN, originally a modest administrative number, had quietly become a de facto national identity number in American society. Because it was not originally conceived as a national ID system, its security design was weak — and as a result, identity theft using SSNs became a serious social problem from the late 20th century onward.

The American case reveals an important property of identity numbering systems. Once a numbering system is introduced, it tends to expand into use in more and more contexts — even if that was never the original intention.

The Face of Authority — The Sheriff’s Badge and the Paradox of Identity Display

Something often overlooked in the history of identity documents is this: while the state was recording individuals’ identities, the officials representing the state also needed to display their own identities. The police badge is the prime example.

The sheriff’s badge of the American frontier era was typically star-shaped with five or six points. This form was not originally established as a standard. There is a story that in the 1840s–1850s, the Texas Rangers cut Mexican peso coins into pentagons and fashioned them into badges — and this is cited as one origin of the star-shaped badge.^[14] In practice, badge shapes varied by region in the early 19th century, with circles, shields, and stars all in use alongside each other.

The purpose of the badge was to display the identity of public authority to citizens. If an individual’s identity document is a response to the state’s demand to “prove who you are,” then the badge was the official’s declaration: “I am the state.” And these two directions of identity display often reflected an imbalanced power relationship: the person who had to prove their identity was typically the ordinary citizen, while the one who exercised power by presenting their identity was the state’s agent.

The Photograph and the Number — The Two Pillars of the Modern Identity Document

The ancient and medieval methods of identity verification we examined in Part 1 all relied on two things in common: documents (letters from authorities, seals, signatures) and community recognition (knowing one another, witnesses). These did not function well in urban societies full of strangers.

The solutions that emerged from the late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century took two forms. One was turning the body itself into data — Bertillon’s measurements, fingerprints, and photographs all pointed in this direction. The other was assigning a unique numerical identifier — the SSN was the beginning of this approach.

Both directions share the same premise: that a person’s identity can be verified through an independent external standard — body data or a number — and that the state manages this standard.

When Bertillon began systematically measuring criminals’ bodies in the 1880s, no one foresaw that it would reshape the logic of identity verification throughout the 20th century. As the state began recording faces, the face no longer belonged only to its owner. It belonged also to the state’s records.

How far that logic has extended is the subject of Part 3.

Previous article: Part 1: From Ancient Identity Records to Medieval Passports

Next article: Part 3: From Genealogy to Digital Databases