RFID Privacy
Wired has an article on the possible suppression of a draft report by the Department of Homeland Security
RFID chips, which either have a battery or use the radio waves from a reader to send information, are widely used in tracking inventory or for highway toll payment systems.But critics argue that hackers can skim information off the chips and that the chips can be used to track individuals. Hackers have also been able to clone some chips, such as those used for payment cards and building security, as well as passports.
The draft report concludes that "RFID appears to offer little benefit when compared to the consequences it brings for privacy and data integrity" -- a finding that was widely criticized by RFID industry officials when the committee met in June.
Hmmm . I wonder why RFID privacy concerns are being "widely criticized" by the RFID industry ....
Jim Harper, one of the commitee members who prepared the report believes that:
There's such a strongly held consensus among industry and DHS that RFID is the way to go that getting people off of that and getting them to examine the technology is very hard to do.
Is it just that? Or are the people in favour of RFID enabled systems well aware of how these systems can be used to undermine privacy - and are backing it because they enable the sort of personal tracking that would make "Big Brother" green with envy ...
The suppressed draft report isolated some problems that have been concerning privacy campaigners for some time.
In a visual check environment, a person may be briefly identified but then forgoitten, rendering them anonymous for practical purposes.In a radio ID-check environment, by contrast, a person's entry into a particular are can easily be recorded and the information permanently stored and repreatedly shared.
In this way, RFID my conver identification based security into an effective survellance program of all people passing certain locations.
Without formidable safefguards, the use of RFID in identification cards and tokens will tend to enable the tracking of individuals' movements, profiling of their activities and subsequent, non-security-related use of identification and derived information.
This is coming straight from the horses mouth from a committee working for the Department of Homeland Security, so you'd think they'd have their finger on the pulse - yet the report is still in draft stage - and as Jim Harper points out "If we don't have a report out before the (PASS card) comment period ends, then we are irrelevant".
One of the conclusions is that:
The use of RFID in identification would predispose identification systems to surveillance uses.
.. in other words "when we are all perpetually under surveillance as a potential security threat - we are all the enemy now" ....
Tags: rfid, identification, privacy, surveillance, wired, dhs, cato institute