US Passports Adding RFID?
From the Galecia blog archive, 2003–2024. Posts are kept as they were published, so some details and links are out of date.
According to a CNET article, US Passports are going to start being implanted with RFID tags as early as October 2006. While I find this extremely difficult to believe, I do believe this part of the article:
"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.....[b]ut the Bush administration chose to go ahead with embedding 64KB chips in future passports...."
I wonder what the point of asking for comments is? If I asked for feedback about something I was considering and 98.5% of the respondents said "Bad Idea!," I might at least hesitate. But that's just me.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (among others)have given the Feds a piece of their mind.
Topics: RFID