Weblog
04/09/05 05:32 PM: Smart Passports?
I wrote this for an upcoming issue in The Voyager:
eginning later this year, the US department of State will issue new, high-tech passports to those coming into the country. The passports also known as “smart passports” are designed to further prevent terrorist infiltration in the US like that of the September 11, 2001 attacks. “A U.S. passport is one of the most valuable documents in the world. The harder we make it for someone to fake a passport or travel as an imposter on a US passport, the better off and safer we all are,” said spokeswoman for the agency’s Bureau of Consular Affairs Angela Aggeler to CNET.com. The new passports will contain a small microchip the size of a human hair that can store up to 64K of memory. The types of information that can be stored include the passport holder’s name, their place and date of birth, and biometric dada including fingerprints, photos, and iris scans. Once at border locations coming into the US, a person’s passport will be read by a machine designed to correctly recognize that person’s identity. Also, at an airport immigration checkpoint, a digital camera can look at the traveler’s face and compare it with the data from the passport chip. “We’re trying to reduce the market in stolen documents and passport identity theft,” says head of the State Department’s passport office Frank Moss to USA Today. Even though the new passports are designed to protect, opponents of the plan believe these new devices are not enough to ensure the safety of America. “Terrorists, criminals and kidnappers would be able to easily identify Americans walking down a hotel corridor, it would be simple to determine in which guest rooms Americans were staying,” claims the Business Travel Coalition to USA Today. Other opponents feel terrorists could illegally access passport information from far away by using machines that send out radio signals, which send back information from the microchip. “Americans have enough things to worry about when traveling overseas. Having an electronic bull’s-eye on our backs shouldn’t be one of them,” according to a statement posted by privacy advocate Bill Scannell on RFIDkills.com. The State Department agrees that hacking into these passports could occur; however, according to a statement in the Federal Register, in order for someone to hack into a microchip, they would have to be four inches away. According to Moss, tests are being performed to find ways to prevent such access. “We will be putting anti-skimming technology into the passports. We wouldn’t adopt a passport technology that was going to put people at risk as they travel around the world,” he said. The “smart passports” will be issued by this August to diplomats and other State Department employees, and by this fall or winter, everyone who applies for a new or renewed passport will be issued theirs. Since passports are valid for only ten years, almost everyone in the US in need of a passport should have the new version by 2015. Foreigners from 27 countries will be required to have the new passports to get into the US by October. Those that visit the US for work, travel, and study already have the microchip information encoded in their Visas. Most of the countries required to update their US passports are in Europe. By 2007, Europe plans to develop that same type of passport technology that the US is unveiling. This technology would add onto the internal security of the European Union States, and fight against illegal immigration.My thoughts are that these “smart passports” will probably be more efficient in protecting us from terrorist attacks. However, I do have my doubts, and would like to see more tests being performed to ensure that the passport microchips are not susceptible of being hacked into by others.
