Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Privacy Advocates Help Correct Wireless Passports
According to a warning on new passport applications, all new passports will have a chip embedded in them containing all the information available inside of the passport. 99% percent of the public responding earlier this year to the government's proposed rule to equip U.S. passports with required RFID chips were opposed to the idea, but the State Department finalized the rule anyway.The chip also contains small tranceiver which will enable reading devices to "ping" or interrogate the data on the chip. The government had long maintained that the passport chips to be used could be read from only 10 cm away. But at least one test showed that a reader could read a passport chip from 30 feet away. Privacy advocates said anyone with a portable reader could remotely read, or "skim," a passport holder‘s personal information from a distance. Also advocates insisted the data should be encrypted over the air to prevent snooping of personal data as its being read.
In response, the State Department says they re-designed the new passports so that the front covers and spines will include an anti-skimming material that blocks the radio waves that could pick up the data when the passport is closed. The RFID only wakes up if the data sent to the passport contains the proper key, which is derrived from the printed data in the passport. According to a recent Harold News Daily article "It will not permit tracking‘ of individuals," the State Department said in making the announcement. "It will only permit governmental authorities to know that an individual has arrived at a port of entry, which governmental authorities already know from presentation of nonelectronic passports."
RFID passports will be required by the Patriot Act for visitors from 27 countries that currently do not need a visa to enter the US. Some people still fear that if a mechanism could be found to detect a passport containing an RFID, that muggers or terrorists could target such passport holders.
HiTekVagabond
# posted by Konrad Roeder @ 11/09/2005 01:53:00 PM
and to think with all thay do we are to realy trust that what a joke im sure you can be tracked probly by satalight
