Bruce Schneier on RFID passports
Bruce Schneier,the well known security expert warns against using RFID chips in passports. Countries whose citizens currently do not have visa requirements to enter the United States will have to issue passports that conform to the standard or risk losing their nonvisa status.These future passports, currently being tested, will include an embedded computer chip. This chip will allow the passport to contain much more information than a simple machine-readable character font, and will allow passport officials to quickly and easily read that information. That is a reasonable requirement and a good idea for bringing passport technology into the 21st century. But the US goernment is advocating radio frequency identification (RFID) chips for both U.S. and foreign passports, and that's a very bad thing. Unfortunately, RFID chips can be read by any reader, not just the ones at passport control. The upshot of this is that travelers carrying around RFID passports are broadcasting their identity. It means that passport holders are continuously broadcasting their name, nationality, age, address and whatever else is on the RFID chip. It means that anyone with a reader can learn that information, without the passport holder's knowledge or consent. Security is always a trade-off. If the benefits of RFID outweighed the risks, then maybe it would be worth it. Certainly, there isn't a significant benefit when people present their passport to a customs official. If that customs official is going to take the passport and bring it near a reader, why can't he go those extra few centimeters that a contact chip--one the reader must actually touch--would require?
posted by Sadagopan @ 1:43 PM
2 Comments:
My opinion is that if anyone develops such a chip and feed it with personal data and embed in the passport, they would surely be aware of this situation. (Will it not be possible to encrypt those info?).
Also just imagine, a group of people coming out of airport with these kind of passports then it will be so easy to read and track those people through such methods without even disturbing them. Security is not always a trade off. The collective security of a society is more important in todays world, and it is boosted with this method. Remember even the current printed passports could be stolen and any one would know your details.
Krishnan - in fact the concern of the article itself is potential intrusion of privacy - this is a matter of serious concern in developed countries - under no circumstances private /personal details should be known to others and in this respect I support Bruce - technology advances should not force personal data to be made public - while through other conventional means the turnaround at immigration can be made faster - example as in changi - where immigration clearance does not take much time at any part of the day.
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