Passports To Get RFIDs After All... But Hopefully Shielded
from the compromises dept
The State Department released a plan earlier this year to put unencrypted, unprotected RFID chips in passports, believing naively that no one else would be interested in scanning data from those chips. After quite an uproar, the State Department agreed to rethink that plan -- and have now come out with a renewed plan that seems much more reasonable, though not perfect. They're going to include some shielding technology on the outside of the passport so that it will be nearly impossible to read the data from the passport while it's closed, along with "Basic Access Control" that gives the passport holder the ability to decide when and how to let the data out. While some complain that Basic Access Control is still unproven, this actually does seem like a reasonable compromise that helps provide the benefits of using RFIDs without the privacy risks associated with the original plan. Once again, while there is the potential for RFIDs to be misused, the real answer is to work on technological solutions to help make those misuses much more difficult, while still allowing the benefits.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
RFID info authorization release
[ link to this | view in thread ]
another useless technology
RFID is a good idea for theft prevention/recovery, on the consumer side, and maybe for shopping carts too. But with a top-down distribution, what is the advantage (besides tracking--which is probably far more bad than good)?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Subject Given
- Freed
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Use a non broadcast method.
[In 5 years might we assume that we will be asked for this instead of a drivers licence as ID!?]
Gee! This sounds like the Credit Card ID theft problem all over again. (where swiping the card twice gotthe data!) BUT with RFID
you can have a passive sniffer.
A better idea might be a shielded IRed link so
only one person can read the info.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lead Film Bags
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]