Wired reports that Tom Ridge, the first secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, this week told the manufacturers and users of radio-frequency identification technologies that their work will protect Americans from terrorism. The first e-passports will be issued in mid-2005.
“That’s one of the beautiful things about RFID,” said Ridge. “It’s another security measure embedded in the U.S. economy.”
Ridge, who recently left his job as DHS chief, ushered the department through several RFID pilot programs, including programs that use tags to secure shipping containers from tampering, and those that use both RFID and biometrics to track workers entering secure airport facilities.
Ridge recently joined the board of Savi Technology, an RFID contractor for the DHS.
Some observers of RFID technology development are worried by Ridge’s support for RFID technologies for tracking people.
At an RF-ID conference in Chicago that brought together tag manufacturers, software developers and freight-shipping managers, Ridge declared that “biometrics and RFID will make us safer.” Ridge called a recent test of RFID to identify passengers and cargo “an enormous success.”
Ridge also said the government can be trusted to safeguard the personal data it gathers from RFID tags.
“We struggle with privacy a lot,” said Ridge. “But with political and private-sector oversight (and digital firewall technologies), we can limit access to the data.”
But asked whether the Homeland Security Department should be allowed to carry out its plan to embed RFID chips in passports, Harper said, “No.”
“It’s unacceptable,” said director of information studies at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute. “In the U.S., it’s a non-starter politically. And I’ll do everything in my power to stop it from happening.”
“There’s no security built into it. This will enable identity theft and put Americans at some risk when they travel internationally.” - Barry Steinhardt, the American Civil Liberties Union
But the government does have legitimate reasons for tracking individuals with RFID, said Marc Roberti, editor of RFID Journal, which hosted the conference where Ridge spoke. “Combined with biometrics and using encryption,” said Roberti, “RFID can be faster and much more secure than mag stripes,” referring to the magnetic strips found on the backs of many ID, credit and bank cards today.
While mag stripes can be easily copied, said Roberti, RFID chips are substantially more secure from such tampering.
DHS is using a type of RFID technology for which data encryption is an option.
That’s why Roberti is puzzled by Homeland Security’s refusal to use encryption on its new passport, nicknamed the e-passport, in order to ensure that RFID readers worldwide can read it. Without encryption, many engineers believe the e-passport, for which the department is already soliciting bids from RFID suppliers, will be easily accessed by unauthorized individuals with RFID reader devices.
“That makes no sense,” said Roberti. “The standard (to which the chips in the e-passport are expected to comply) is a universal standard. I really have no idea why they are not using encryption.”
All U.S. passports issued by the end of 2005 are expected to have a chip containing the holders’ name, birth date and issuing office, as well as a “biometric” identifier — a photo of the holders’ face or other biometrics, such as fingerprints. “There’s no security built into it,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program, at the American Civil Liberties Union. “This will enable identity theft and put Americans at some risk when they travel internationally.”
Roadside RFID readers from Transcore collect signals from transponders installed in about 1 million E-Pass and SunPass customer vehicles in Florida.
Tracking Cattle with RF-ID is common. The National Animal Identification System now has 29 projects going to explore technologies, including RFID that will be key to tracking cattle. Several of these projects relate to what is being called the “Idaho coalition”, an effort which includes Utah and several other northwestern states.
The Digital Angel Corporation, which uses RF-ID to identify, locate and track cattle, announced this month that it has begun shipping its proprietary RFID electronic tags to Canadian farmers. Digital Angel is one of only four companies with Canadian Cattle Identification Approved (CCIA)-approved electronic RFID ear tags. The program was established to address the struggling Canadian beef industry after the 2003 Mad Cow scare that closed the border to live cattle movements.
Avery Dennison (the largest label maker) and Alien Technology plan to embed RF-ID into the Electronic Product Code (ePC). Then every pop can and every box of laundry detergent can be tracked and read – along with your Safeway card – inside the grocery cart, up to 1000 feet away.
More information on RF-ID is available at MIT’s Autoidcenter.org, EPCglobal, RFID.org, RF-ID Journal, buyrfid.com, ACSIS.com, RFID toolkit, rfidtalk.com and nocards.org. WiFi Planet overviews RF-ID technologies.
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