Digital ID: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Reveals Trump Plans To Sign Executive Order To Hand Over Biometric Data To Hold A Bank Account
“It’s in process, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable, because: Why don’t we have information on who’s in our banking system?"
Earlier last month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed that President Donald Trump plans to soon announce and sign an executive order that would allow banks to ask for biometric data to register and hold a bank account, under the guise of tackling illegal immigration.
In February, Semafor reported on rumors of this executive order being in the works. The report noted, however, that REAL ID — that little star on Americans’ driver’s licenses and IDs — would not be sufficient enough identification and more information would be required.
The outlet wrote at the time:
The Trump administration is considering requiring banks to collect proof of citizenship, like passports, from its customers, people familiar with the talks told Semafor.
The policy would be retroactive, which means banks would have to solicit documentation from current customers as well as future ones, the people said. REAL IDs, which do not prove citizenship, would not be considered eligible.
One financial services lobbyist called the idea a “complete nightmare” logistically. The lobbyist also warned of potential pushback from GOP voters: “The admin might think this is a good idea until Joe MAGA in Alabama is asked to present his papers.”
“Verifying every bank customer’s citizenship status would be unworkable,” said another person familiar with the recent talks. “Such a mandate could force every bank in America to solicit documentation that many everyday Americans do not have on hand. To put that into perspective, the US government has spent the last 20 years trying to encourage adoption of the REAL ID, and even that form of documentation does not constitute proof of citizenship.”
Despite spending over two decades getting states and Americans to accept REAL ID, that apparently is not enough for this administration.
The WinePress reported in January that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would not consider a REAL ID as sufficient proof of legal residence, despite the fact that naturalized American citizens must have one to enter most federal buildings and in many instances to board a plane.
For context, Real ID was approved in the post 9/11 years under the DHS, which acts as a nationally approved ID that is valid in all 50 states, and consolidates other documents such as a passport. Uptick was slow, but on May 7th, 2025, Real ID was mandated in order to pass TSA security at airports, and end enter federal buildings.
However, this is not entirely true as weeks after she made her initial announcement in April, Noem revealed that Americans could still fly as long as they provided a valid passport and other paperwork, as is also explained in the TSA website.
Real ID has faced plenty of scrutiny, not just for being able to travel, but on the additional powers the Real ID act grants to the DHS Secretary. From the bill H.R. 1268:
OFFICIAL PURPOSE- The term `official purpose’ includes but is not limited to accessing Federal facilities, boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft, entering nuclear power plants, and any other purposes that the Secretary shall determine.
Jon Padfield with Business Reform explained in an excellent report that this opens the door for the standing DHS Secretary to enforce a Real ID check for a number of things, from opening a bank account, to renting vehicles, purchasing a phone, booking a hotel, and so on; which could force businesses to comply as to meet the proper terms of Know-Your-Customer (KYC) laws.
Padfield also noted that the DHS during the Biden administration was already discussing turning Real ID into a digital app on phones — digital ID. Sarcastically speaking, Padfield remarked:
“I seem to recall another government issued ID a few years ago - [Covid vaccine passports] - that people were required to show if they wanted to eat in a restaurant, attend a sporting event, or take public transportation.
“But I am sure Real ID would never be used to limit people’s movements or to enforce curfews or lockdowns. This is America and we don’t do things like that except for, well, never mind.”
On top of that, though most Americans (94%) already have a Real ID, the administration is now upping the pressure by enforcing fines starting next month for non-compliant residents.
Announced on December 1st, the DHS wrote in a press release that those who do not have one will face a $45 fee at airports.
ICE has argued that some states are granting REAL ID to illegal immigrants and that is one of the reasons why the agency has claimed it is not enough.
Although there has been a significant drawdown in ICE enforcement and arrests, ICE has quietly been biometrically databasing Americans and illegals, and using an AI-driven, quasi-social credit score system powered by Palantir to help form a list of targets.
Semafor’s initial report was confirmed last month after Scott Bessent sat down for an interview at the Semafor World Economy event in Washington, D.C., where Bessent revealed Trump is preparing to sign this executive order. The interaction was brief.
Ben Smith: “A question on domestic policy: There was a report that there’s a discussion of an executive order that would require banks collect citizenship information on their customers. Where does that stand?”
Scott Bessent: “It’s in process, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable, because: Why don’t we have information on who’s in our banking system? I have a place in the UK; they want to know who lives in every apartment. And how do we know that it’s not part of a foreign terrorist organization? Back to your friend from the IRS who says, ‘Don’t worry about it.’”
Ben Smith: “They’re not at the IRS.”
Scott Bessent: “But we are worried about it.”
Moreover, Bessent reaffirmed this in an interview with CNBC’s Sarah Eisen Invest in America Forum in Washington, D.C.
CNBC noted:
The planned EO is one more plank in President Donald Trump’s broader effort to tie his immigration policy to collection of information in the United States, including for voting and Census efforts.
In the U.S., citizenship documents are not necessary in order to open a bank account. Banks are required to verify identity.
The U.S., like many countries, uses “know your customer” [KYC] rules for bank accounts to prevent money laundering and other forms of financial crime, verifying client identities, assessing risks, and monitoring transactions to prevent fraud. Laws including the Bank Secrecy Act, or BSA, and the USA Patriot Act also underpin efforts to verify customers. Banks collect Social Security numbers, or an individual taxpayer identification number, or ITIN, names, dates of birth and addresses, among other documents.
But for Bessent and the White House, this is not enough.
“If Treasury and the banking regulators say it’s their job, it’s their job.
“Why can unknown foreign nationals come and open a bank account? Our bank executives job is to know your customer. How do you know your customer if you don’t know if they have legal or illegal status, whether they are a U.S. citizen or green card holder?
“Every other country does it. Every other country. [...] There should be stricter rules.”
Watch:
In September of last year, the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Keir Starmer mandated Britcard, a compulsory digital ID that everyone would have to register for lest they be considered illegal, and therefore unable to work and get a job. Starmer purportedly claims the scheme would be used to tackle illegal immigration.
“But the simple fact that every nation needs to have control over its borders. We do need to know who is in our country.
“Today, I am announcing this government will make a new free of charge digital ID mandatory for the right to work by the end of this Parliament.
“Let me spell that out: You will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID. It’s as simple as that. Because decent, pragmatic, fair-minded people, they want us to tackle the issues that they see around them. And of course, the truth is we won’t solve our problems if we don’t also take on the root causes.”
Britcard was eventually temporarily reneged a few months later, but the prospect of digital ID has not gone away and the country is rolling out digital ID a little more subtly.
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced a bill in March to require Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. or National Credit Union Administration-insured banks and credit unions to verify that anyone opening an account is a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or in the country on a valid visa, with an additional verification check on legal status, CNBC noted.
Last October, Cotton asked the Treasury “to urge the Department of the Treasury to undertake a comprehensive review of current rules that allow illegal aliens to obtain financial services and access to the U.S. banking system.”
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Problem. Reaction. Solution. It’s the same old song and dance. Per usual, illegal immigration is being cited as the cause for this; but this would not be necessary if customs enforcement and the government were actually serious about border security, deportations (like Trump campaigned on and has woefully failed to do), and not bowing to insatiable corporate greed.
But none of what Bessent (a George Soros protege) and Trump are doing should be a surprise because The WP has been covering it intently since Trump took office.
Proverbs 12:5 The thoughts of the righteous are right: but the counsels of the wicked are deceit.
Go back to a report I published last September where we examined a White House report that explicitly discusses implementing digital ID, and restructuring the economy for blockchain ledgers, tokenized assets, and stablecoins and CBDCs.
From that report:
On August 18th, the Treasury Department filed a request for comment in the Federal Register which seeks a response from financial institutions, tech firms, and the public to give their input on “innovative or novel methods, techniques, or strategies to detect and mitigate illicit finance risks involving digital assets.”
This is part of an obligation mandated in the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act), a bill that President Donald Trump signed in July that establishes a framework for stablecoins; digital dollars, programmable tokens acting as “money,” providing corporations and other third-party entities to effectively become a “bank” that can issue stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar. As I covered in my report the week it was signed - after Congress held the longest voting session ever in its history - the bill effectively creates CBDCs that are managed by third-party operators in collaboration with the U.S. government for regulation, and technology and funds linked back to the Federal Reserve.
Trump’s AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks confirmed during the signing event that the bill creates a digital dollar that will eventually be widely used by Americans and others around the world.
“This genius act will unlock American dominance in the crypto industry by creating clear rules of the road. It will update arcade payment rails with a revolutionary new payment system, and it will extend US dollar anonymous, like you said, globally by creating a digital dollar that people all over the world can use.
“And for every digital dollar in a crypto wallet, there’ll be a traditional dollar in a US bank account, which will create trillions of dollars demand for US Treasuries. So that is the power of this bill, as you asked all the comments, this is a huge promise made and promise kept by President Trump.”
The Treasury’s request for comment in accordance with the demands of the GENIUS Act asked for four things: Application Program Interfaces (APIs), AI, Blockchain Technology and Monitoring, and Digital Identity Verification. As for digital IDs, the Treasury wrote:
“Digital identity verification (also known as identity proofing) is the process of establishing and verifying that a person is who they claim to be in a digital context. Treasury is aware of several efforts in the digital asset industry to develop portable digital identity credentials designed to support various elements of [Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CFT)] and sanctions compliance, maximize user privacy, and reduce compliance burden on financial institutions.
“These tools can incorporate different pieces of information, such as government-issued identity documents or biometrics, and can vary by operational models, governance, and convenience. Digital identity verification tools can also potentially be used by regulated digital asset intermediaries to support onboarding or by decentralized finance (DeFi) services’ smart contracts to automatically check for a credential before executing a user’s transaction.”
Two weeks after the GENIUS Act was passed, the White House published a 166-page report titled “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Finance Technology.” Its Working Group of authors that span across a number of departments, lays out in detail the plans and recommendations this administration has for the future of finance, and how they intend to achieve these objectives. The Working Group, according to the document, “endorse the notion that digital assets and blockchain technologies can revolutionize not just America’s financial system, but systems of ownership and governance economy-wide.”
Digital ID was specifically listed in the Genius Act, forcing banks and custodians such as fintechs and corporations that want to use stablecoins. The bill plainly states, “A permitted payment stablecoin issuer shall be treated as a financial institution,” and those institutions must have “maintenance of an effective customer identification program, including identification and verification of account holders with the permitted payment stablecoin issuer, high-value transactions, and appropriate enhanced due diligence.”
That is digital ID.
Moreover, as we have covered before, this helps to fulfil the AML and KYC regulations required. KYC has been around since the post-9/11 and Patriot Act era, but KYC in the digital age is getting an ‘upgrade,’ as we are seeing, and this incorporates biometric data and verification methods — which will include transaction and internet search history, tax records, residency, etc.
It is also important to remember that post-9/11, all U.S. passports are biometric by default. The State Department began rolling them in late-2025 and 2026, and then fully implemented in 2007; each passport containing a small RFID chip in them.
A 2006 archived State Department post reads:
Consistent with globally interoperable specifications adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), this next generation of the U.S. passport includes biometric technology. A contactless chip in the rear cover of the passport will contain the same data as that found on the biographic data page of the passport (name, date of birth, gender, place of birth, dates of passport issuance and expiration, passport number), and will also include a digital image of the bearer’s photograph.
The Department of State has employed a multi-layered approach to protect the privacy of the information and to mitigate the chances of the electronic data being skimmed (unauthorized reading) or eavesdropped (intercepting communication of the transmission of data between the chip and the reader by unintended recipients).
Metallic anti-skimming material incorporated into the front cover and spine of the e-passport book prevents the chip from being skimmed, or read, when the book is fully closed; Basic Access Control (BAC) technology, which requires that the data page be read electronically to generate a key that unlocks the chip, will prevent skimming and eavesdropping; and a randomized unique identification (RUID) feature will mitigate the risk that an e-passport holder could be tracked. To prevent alteration or modification of the data on the chip, and to allow authorities to validate and authenticate the data, the information on the chip will include an electronic signature (PKI).
Thus, Trump’s soon-to-be executive order merges biometric security — something that shouldn’t even exist, had it not been for the major false flag that was 9/11 and the subsequent Patriot Act — with banking, representing yet another major loss to our financial freedom and civil liberties.
As Dr. Paul Craig Roberts put it recently: “Trump Is Putting Americans into Digital Prison.”
“Be sure you understand what is occurring. The federal government let in millions of undocumented immigrant-invaders including criminals and possibly terrorists. To protect against this threat, the federal government wants to take away the Constitutionally protected civil liberties of US citizens. Trump’s plan leaves Americans completely unprotected against government just as the American colonists were unprotected against the British government except by force of arms.
“The American people, as insouciant as they have proved to be time and time again, have little comprehension that America’s time as a free society has come to its end. This coming July 4 will the last time Americans hear about America’s unsurpassed freedom and the men who gave their lives for us to have it. No such freedom will any longer exist.”
He’s right. People don’t know and don’t care. It’s the boiling frog experiment; but the American frogs have developed Stockholm Syndrome and like being boiled alive.
Job 35:9 By reason of the multitude of oppressions they make the oppressed to cry: they cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty. [10] But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night; [11] Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven? [12] There they cry, but none giveth answer, because of the pride of evil men. [13] Surely God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty regard it.
Be your own bank. I’ve preached this for years. Keep your money under a mattress, keep only the bare minimum to maintain a running balance (for now), and hold tangible assets. Do not be dependent on these institutions.
If you enjoy this report and others like it, please consider sharing this post and supporting The WinePress down below!
The Lord Of Glory: The Detailed Guide To Who God Is – Available Now!
On one of his missionary journeys, the apostle Paul visited Athens, Greece, where he said he witnessed “the city wholly given to idolatry,” and who were “too superstitious” and worshipped a plurality of gods and deities, though the people acknowledged that there was still one God above all that was a mystery to them. When questioned by the philosophers …
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
The WinePress needs your support! If God has laid it on your heart to want to contribute, please prayerfully consider donating to this ministry. If you cannot gift a monetary donation, then please donate your fervent prayers to keep this ministry going! Thank you and may God bless you.
To support The WinePress, you can contribute by doing one or more of the following:
You may send cash, check or letters to this address:
Jacob M. Thompson
#119
12820 Adams Rd.
Granger, IN 46530
If you decide to send a check, please do not address it to “The WinePress.” Please address it to the name listed.
You can become a paid member on Substack.
You can also donate electronically by hitting the link below:
What gets me is that they are forcing us to provide everything about ourselves so that THEY can be sure we are who we say we are, but we don't get to know anything about them. I think we should also be able to KYB...Know Your Bankers, and all of the others who are demanding our information.
I don't feel comfortable giving all of my private information to people I don't even know.
Thank you my friend for the info, plain to see where this is all going!
😎✌️💪