[extropy-chat] RFID smartcard passports and driver's licences

[Hal Finney]

megao at sasktel.net writes:
> The ramp up is on to make passports mandatory to travel from Canada to 
> USA and Vice Versa in 1-2 years.
>
> Are there any projects  in development  suggesting use of  RFID 
> integrated  personal  ID smartcards?

RFID has been used for many years in personal ID smartcards.  These are
used for access control at universities and corporations.  Some places
also use them to operate vending machines and make purchases, I think.

These RFID chips are generally shorter range than the new generation
which is more controversial.  You have to wave the card near a sensor.
The newer RFID chips can be read from many feet away and will be used
for remote sensing of products in warehouses, and possibly many other
applications.

> A card might be programmed to log the users activities while out of the 
> country and download to the customs
> on exit.  The card might try to log RFID scanners  and nearness to other 
> personal smartcards.

RFID chips are unpowered until brought into the vicinity of the reader.
So they can't do too much monitoring of routine activities.  The main
thing they could store is a record of when and how they had been activated
in the past.

> Similarly might drivers licences also be used in the next 5-10 years to  
> log annually the daily activities of persons and download this 
> information annually (at renewal time) to a central security database?

There was an article the other day about Texas using RFIDs in cars to
allow remote reading of the car's registration data.  I lived in Texas
years ago and at that time you had to display the registration on the
dashboard so it was readable from outside.  I don't know if it is still
required, but this new proposal would allow electronic reading of similar
data from farther away.

This would be static data and would not require it to be updated,
at least not very often.  Logging daily activity would require a more
advanced technology than the kind of RFIDs being deployed today.

Cars do in fact record quite a bit about driving habits and engine
behavior internally, making for a sort of "black box" record which is
sometimes being used in post mortems of traffic accidents.  It can work to
the driver's disadvantage if he is found to have been driving recklessly.

Definitely these new technologies pose many threats to privacy.  RFIDs are
just one class of devices but many others are coming.  Camera phones are
another area where enhanced technology is colliding with expectation of
privacy.  But all these are a symptom and not a cause of the problems.
Fundamentally the issue is the continued miniaturization of electronic
devices, leading us to a world of smart dust and universal surveillance.

IMO we need to start adapting to this future.  Calls to hold back the
tide and stop the use of RFIDs are only stopgaps at best.  New devices
like always-on personal recording devices are around the corner.
Downtown areas already have widespread surveillance due to overlapping
fields of view of private security cameras.  These may evolve towards
Vingean localizers, miniature devices broadcasting public camera views
onto the net.

I have never been fond of Brin's goal of transparency but it seems that
some version of his world is inevitable.  I hope that we will be able to
carve out some areas of social interaction where privacy is protected,
but it's not clear at this time how that can happen.

Hal