Wireless World: Rethinking passport chips

CHICAGO, April 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. government may be rethinking a plan to imbed wireless tracking technology in the passport of every citizen after hearing objections about potential civil liberties violations, experts told UPI's Wireless World.

The State Department plans later this year to install wireless radio frequency identification or RFID chips in all new passports it issues, but it is receiving flack about the amount of identifying information those chips will contain and whether that data will be secure from hackers.

"It is not backing away from the use of RFID in passports, it is rethinking the decision not to encrypt the data on the tag," said Mark Roberti, founder and editor of RFID Journal, a leading industry magazine in Hauppauge, N.Y. "The State Department is now looking at ways to secure the data on the tag."

Civil-rights activists raised those concerns, as well as fears about possible invasion of privacy and identity theft.

Edward Hasbrouck of San Francisco, author of the "Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World," an expert on travel and a civil-rights activist, along with other objectors raised such questions during a recent hacker conference, which featured Frank Moss, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives also got involved, adding pressure on the administration. As a result, the government this week disclosed it is considering a more secure, encrypted chip for its passport design.

"It's a trial balloon," Hasbrouck told Wireless World. "It is a potentially significant step."

The passports can be read only with a special scanner developed for the government -- not one used by hackers to eavesdrop on the electronic transmissions. They also would be coated with a material to protect them from being hacked.

Pressure from the activists may have prompted Moss's announcement of the changes, but experts also said pressure from European governments was a factor.

"In the European Union, this kind of technology is being adopted," said Peter Vogel, an intellectual property attorney with the Dallas law firm of Gardere Wynne Sewell. "What they're trying to do is encourage and foster international travel -- make it easier to move between countries."

Activists in the United States, however, continue to worry about passport abuses by the government and private sector. Those concerns were not addressed by this week's State Department statement about encrypting the chips. Activists said a travel dossier can be compiled on every American who uses the passports, and commercial airlines and other travel companies could surreptitiously track the comings and goings of travelers as well.

The electronic passports have the potential to emerge as a national ID card, or what Hasbrouck described as "a globally unique, government assigned and administered personal identifier for data aggregation and data mining."

Hasbrouck said he worries domestic and foreign governments could access that data whenever they scan passports.

"We have not had a debate over the questions that we need to have a debate about," he said. "Should the government be gathering this data? That's a public policy question that needs to be addressed."

Other experts are not as worried about the government's plan to use RFID in passports and said the technology already is part of daily life for many Americans.

"I'm curious as to what all the uproar is about," said David Abel, an attorney in the intellectual property law practice at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Los Angeles. "If you use the speed pass at the gas station, or smart keys for automobiles, or security badges at the office -- these are RFID-enabled."

Abel also downplayed fears terrorists could use the technology to pinpoint Americans overseas. The tags in the passports can be read from a maximum distance of about 10 feet.

"The tags only transmit to the right kind of reader -- and then for only a limited range," Abel told Wireless World. "You're not going to be able to drive by a cafe and say, 'There are 15 Americans in there, let's throw a bomb in there.'"

Vogel said he thinks it unlikely the government would completely back away from RFID, even if pressure from outside groups continues.

"RFID has finally made it on people's radar, but this technology has been going on for 20 years behind the scenes," he said. "The Pentagon is going to require every vendor to use RFID. They're using RFID to track soldiers in Iraq. Companies like Microsoft and TI (Texas Instruments) are major players in the field. I don't know that they're going to back off entirely."

The State Department has not yet issued a final plan for RFID, so the issue will remain unresolved for some time. Encrypting data on passports may just be a start.

"(The department) received some 2,400 comments on its proposal," Roberti said, "and many people who commented felt that this was not enough protection."

--

Gene J. Koprowski is a 2005 Winner of a Lilly Endowment Award for his columns for United Press International. He covers telecommunications for UPI Science News. E-mail: sciencemail@upi.com