Passports to get RFID chips

[MountainLaurel]

98.5 percent of the comments were negative, but they decided to do it anyway. Tells you a lot about the prospects for democracy and having your voice heard, now doesn't it?

All U.S. passports will be implanted with remotely readable computer chips starting in October 2006, the Bush administration has announced.

Sweeping new State Department regulations issued Tuesday say that passports issued after that time will have tiny radio frequency ID (RFID) chips that can transmit personal information including the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and digitized photograph of the passport holder. Eventually, the government contemplates adding additional digitized data such as "fingerprints or iris scans."

Over the last year, opposition to the idea of implanting RFID chips in passports has grown amidst worries that identity thieves could snatch personal information out of the air simply by aiming a high-powered antenna at a person or a vehicle carrying a passport. Out of the 2,335 comments on the plan that were received by the State Department this year, 98.5 percent were negative. The objections mostly focused on security and privacy concerns.

But the Bush administration chose to go ahead with embedding 64KB chips in future passports, citing a desire to abide by "globally interoperable" standards devised by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency. Other nations, including the United Kingdom and Germany, have announced similar plans.

http://news.com.com/Passports+to+get+RFID+chip+implants/2100-7348_3-5913644.html?tag=nefd.top

[electropop]

1. How about making the covers from metal foil?

Then it would only be readable if you open it intentionally.

[BattyDem]

5. That would make too much sense.

Besides, then they couldn't track you wherever you went, which is their true intention.

[400Years]

2. so much for all that anti-UN talk

another step toward a global police state

[BattyDem]

3. Time to purchase some lead foil

From an article in PC Magazine by John C. Dvorak in August 2005

"These things (RFIDs) will be everywhere. My advice: Get a piece of lead foil, cut it to the size of your billfold, and just put it in your wallet like a dollar. That should keep snoopers at bay. And it makes a good conversation starter."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1853332,00.asp

[Village Idiot]

4. They ought to be pretty simple to magnetically disable...

[electropop]

6. Fine if you don't want to cross the border.

Plus, it's not a magnetic strip; it's a chip, so you'd literally need enough power to burn it out - not easily achieved at home.

[Citrene]

7. In the future, when we don't carry cash or passports...

Will we have to wrap ourselves in lead foil? }(

[MountainLaurel]

8. Nah

The chip will be in your head by then.

[Vietnam68]

9. Passports to get RFID chips

Just wait until they get the bright idea of putting RFID chips in <b>people</b> instead of passports.

Just watch: They will do it first with sex offenders. Nobody will protest, because after all they're <i>sex offenders</i> and they deserve anything we can do to them. But once that's upheld in law, there is nothing preventing them from doing it to everybody. Mark my words.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. RFID in people? It's being worked on ...

http://www.rfidnews.org/weblog/2006/12/28/cuttingedge-technologies-like-implantable-rfid-will-help-sick-and-elderly/

[eridani]

10. Something you can do about RFIDs

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/start.html?pg=9

All passports issued by the US State Department after January 1 will have always-on radio frequency identification chips, making it easy for officials – and hackers – to grab your personal stats. Getting paranoid about strangers slurping up your identity? Here’s what you can do about it. But be careful – tampering with a passport is punishable by 25 years
in prison. Not to mention the “special” customs search, with rubber gloves. Bon voyage!

1) RFID-tagged passports have a distinctive logo on the front cover; the chip is embedded in the back.

2) Sorry, “accidentally” leaving your passport in the jeans you just put in the washer won’t work. You’re more likely to ruin the passport itself than the chip.

3) Forget about nuking it in the microwave – the chip could burst into flames, leaving telltale scorch marks. Besides, have you ever smelled burnt passport?

4) The best approach? Hammer time. Hitting the chip with a blunt, hard object should disable it. A nonworking RFID doesn’t invalidate the passport, so you can still use it.

– Jenna Wortham

[Ben Masel]

15. 2 years ago, the State Department's

UnderSecretary Frank Moss, the guy behind the chipped passport program came to the Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy to present on the project. Gotta give him credit for facing the toughest audience possible.

When I asked what would happen if a passport with a smashed chip was presented on re-entry to the US, he replied "Oh, we'll let you in, eventually. First you'll spend a few hours at our tender mercies."

Photo: Moss demonstrates the reader. Also, EFF's John Gilmore, Travel writer Ed Hasbrouck, and yours truly, with the hair.

Hasbrouk's blog The Practical Nomad is the top resource on Freedom to Travel.

This year's CFP starts Tuesday, in Montreal. I'll be in attendance, if Canadian Immigration lets me in the country.

[Codeblue]

11. Canada

Do they have similar plans? If not, that's the route I'm going. Going to go down to the Canadian Consulate soon and get my citizenship papers (dad is a Canadian citizen) and get a Canadian passport. Probably be safer for travelling the world with anyway.

[jberryhill]

13. There is a material specifically made for this

Conductive anti-static poly bags are available in all shapes and sizes. It is the material in which RFID toll-payment devices are shipped, as well as most other electronic equipment.

They cost pennies.

You don't need lead foil or any other nonsense like that.

Seriously, when you mail-order a toll pass, just what do you THINK keeps it from triggering highway toll devices from manufacture to your door?

[thinkbridge]

14. next stop for RFID chips: your brain

so I read in an older New Scientist mag - so watch out!
this was supposed to make it easy to just walk into a store, grab some items, and walk out, and Big Brother conveniently deducts money from your account!
Now you'd REALLy better watch out for those hackers from China...