FC: State Department sharing JPEG visa photos with CIA, others?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 17:24:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Nick Kralevich
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: Big Brother -- Diversity Visa?

[please remove my e-mail address if you repost this message -- too much
spam]

The US Department of State recently announced it's new process for
handling the Diversity Visa of 2005.  The Diversity Visa, for people who
aren't familiar with it, is a program where up to 50,000 people are
granted admission to the United States from under-represented countries.

http://travel.state.gov/dv2005.html

What's interesting about this year's change is that all applications are
now submitted electronically.  Included with each application is a JPEG
photo of the person submitting the application.

In the past, even the paper versions of the Diversity Visa have been
subject to privacy concerns.  Now that the data is being submitted
electronically, one can only imagine how the data may be abused.

In an article about a year ago, Ed Dickens made the following comments on
the paper version of the Diversity Visa:

  http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/3914573.htm

  Ed Dickens, a spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, which runs
  the program, said the State Department would be willing to change its
  rules to share all the forms with the FBI and the CIA.
        
  "We'd be happy to mail them to the CIA if they wanted," Dickens said.
  "They're not of particular use to us."

One can only wonder at the possibilities now that the data will be
electronically available...

Take care,
-- Nick Kralevich
        




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------