Chips in official IDs raise privacy fears

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
Date: July 11, 2009 5:33:23 PM EDT
To: undisclosed-recipient:;
Subject: Chips in official IDs raise privacy fears


Chips in official IDs raise privacy fears

By TODD LEWAN, AP National Writer
Saturday, July 11, 2009

(07-11) 12:38 PDT (AP) --

Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a
Motorola reader he'd bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the
streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity
cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car.

It took him 20 minutes to strike hacker's gold.

Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded
to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians'
electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency
identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he'd "skimmed" the
identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a
distance of 20 feet.

Embedding identity documents - passports, drivers licenses, and the
like - with RFID chips is a no-brainer to government officials.
Increasingly, they are promoting it as a 21st century application of
technology that will help speed border crossings, safeguard
credentials against counterfeiters, and keep terrorists from sneaking
into the country.

But Paget's February experiment demonstrated something privacy
advocates had feared for years: That RFID, coupled with other
technologies, could make people trackable without their knowledge or
consent.

He filmed his drive-by heist, and soon his video went viral on the
Web, intensifying a debate over a push by government, federal and
state, to put tracking technologies in identity documents and over
their potential to erode privacy.

Putting a traceable RFID in every pocket has the potential to make
everybody a blip on someone's radar screen, critics say, and to
redefine Orwellian government snooping for the digital age.

...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/11/financial/f113535D07.DTL





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