NYT: Homeland Security to Ban Staring At Passports

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: c d <cdavis4000 () yahoo com>
Date: June 24, 2005 3:13:43 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: NYT: Homeland Security to Ban Staring At Passports


Dave--

This reminds me of a joke you made the last time I saw you talk.

Cheers.



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Homeland Security Plans to Ban Excessive Examination of IDs

June 23, 2005 By JOHN MARKOFF

In a measure designed to stop identity theft and immigration
fraud, the Department of Homeland Security is considering
prohibiting the "excessive examination", "undue scrutiny"
and the photocopying of identity cards and passports. The
new measure, currently under administrative review, is
scheduled to take effect in September 2005.

The new rules illustrate the difficulty of building strict
identity tracking into a world economy. Every person who
examines a driver's license or a passport learns all of the
information necessary to create a fake document. Anyone who
makes a photocopy of a passport can use the data to steal
that person's identity.

"We've had cases where clerks would insist on photocopying
the passport of a new job applicant and then turn around and
sell a copy to some illegal immigrant. I shudder to think
what could have happened if that clerk was connected to al
Queda." said Robert Barnes, the Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Information Assurance at the Departmet of Homeland
Security. Mr. Barnes's group is responsible for designing
the new regulations.

The  rules under review do not offer any firm limits on how
long someone may look at a passport or driver's license,
simply choosing to forbid "excessive examination". Earlier
versions including strict limits of first 5 seconds, then 10
seconds, and finally 7 seconds were all rejected because of
concerns they might run afoul of laws protecting handicapped
people.

"We're not going to be starting any stopwatches", said Mr.
Barnes in a telephone interview. "But if someone looks like
they're memorizing a driver's license or passport number,
we'll be able to act."

The Department of Homeland Security is also beginning to
look carefully at new automated technology used by bars and
tobacco shops. These tools check the age of the license
holder, a feature that removes any inconsistencies
introduced by relying upon fallable humans working in the
low light of many nightclubs.

The danger is that these systems can also harvest all of the
information on the magnetic strip, a process that has
already been exploited by identity thieves. In
anti-terrorist wargames, the Department of Homeland Security
has already worked through scenarios where a Queda member
opens a nightclub near a military base offering low priced
drinks to any military personnel presenting a valid military
ID.

During the games, one team  solved the problem of a spy
working as a nightclub bouncer by requiring all military
personnel to use relatively anonymous cash. This potential
regulation never made it past the conference room table,
however, because many believed it would be inpractical in a
world dominated by credit cards offering incentives like
free air travel.

Joshua Spitznagel, a computer scientist at Department of
Homeland Security, said his division was looking at
algorithms that let people pay for items without relying
upon their identity. Still, he noted, "These algorithms
really worry the people at the Department of Treasury who
are trying to stop money laundering and tax evasion."
Chris Hoofnagle, a privacy advocate for the Washington,
DC-based lobbying group, the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, worried about the new regulations, but praised the
Homeland Security Agency for "recognizing the danger of
circulating people's personal information."

Indeed, Hoofnagle's group and a number of other activist
organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union have
opposed other electronic technology like the "contactless
chips" being considered for passports. The groups call them
"beacons for terrorists" and point out that stalkers,
identity thieves and others can use the technology to
remotely read all of the information from a person's
passport.

Barnes said that the his department was rethinking
the passport technology with the hope that a new layer of
security will prevent abuse. The agency hopes that some
encryption technology will allow only duly authorized agents
to recover the information.

"People want to forget about surveillance. But
maybe we can solve the problem by building in another layer
of protection?" says Barnes.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/34/technology/02darpa.html

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