November 6th, 2005
Electronic Passport?
This news I got from winxp news. You may not know it yet, as if we do not have enough privacy concerns, but starting October 2006, passports will be chipped with radio frequency ID (RFID) chips that can transmit all your personal information including the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and a digitized photograph. The gov already has this info, so what’s the danger you ask? Well it seems that it might be possible to bypass the passport shields (like when the passport is open). and allow others to skim your vital info. The State Department claims it has addressed privacy concerns and chipped passports will not permit individual ‘tracking’. “It will only permit governmental authorities to know that an individual has arrived at a port of entry–which governmental authorities already know from presentation of non-electronic passports — with greater assurance that the person who presents the passport is the legitimate holder of the passport.” Some kinda 007 movie huh? If you want to know more here is the link.
