> From: The Fool > <<http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,65243,00.html>> > > RFID Driver's Licenses Debated > > > By Mark Baard > > 09:50 AM Oct. 06, 2004 PT > > > Some federal and state government officials want to make state driver's > licenses harder to counterfeit or steal, by adding computer chips that > emit a radio signal bearing a license holder's unique, personal > information. > > . > In Virginia, where several of the 9/11 hijackers obtained driver's > licenses, state legislators Wednesday will hear testimony about how radio > frequency identification, or RFID, tags may prevent identity fraud and > help thwart terrorists using falsified documents to move about the > country. > > Privacy advocates will argue that the radio tags will also make it easy > for the government to spy on its citizens and exacerbate identity theft, > one of the problems the technology is meant to relieve. > > Virginia is among the first states to explore the idea of creating a > smart driver's license, which may eventually use any combination of RFID > tags and biometric data, such as fingerprints or retinal scans. > > "Nine of the 19 9/11 terrorists obtained their licenses illegally in > Virginia, and that was quite an embarrassment," said Virginia General > Assembly delegate Kathy Byron, chairwoman of a subcommittee looking into > the use of so-called smart driver's licenses, which may include RFID > technology. > > The biometric data would make it harder for an individual to use a stolen > or forged driver's license for identification. The RFID tags would make > the licenses a "contact-less" technology, verifying IDs more efficiently, > and making lines at security checkpoints move quicker. > > Because information on RFID tags can be picked up from many feet away, > licenses would not have to be put directly into a reader device. If there > was any suspicion that a person was not who he claimed to be, ID checkers > could take him aside for fingerprinting or a retinal scan. > > States need to adopt technologies that can ensure a driver's license > holder is who he says he is, said Byron. > > Federal legislators may also require states to comply with uniform "smart > card" standards, making state driver's licenses into national > identification cards that could be read at any location throughout the > country. The RFID chips on driver's licenses would at a minimum transmit > all of the information on the front of a driver's license. They may also > eventually transmit fingerprint and other uniquely identifiable > information to reader devices. > > But federal mandates for adding RFID chips to driver's licenses would > create an impossible burden for states, which will have to shoulder the > costs of generating new licenses, and installing reader devices in their > motor vehicle offices, said a states' rights advocate. > > "It could easily become yet another unfunded federal mandate, of which we > already have $60 billion worth," said Cheye Calvo, director of the > transportation committee at the National Conference of State > Legislatures. > > Drivers with E-ZPass tags on their windshields can already cruise through > many highway toll booths without stopping, thanks to RFID technology. > > RFID tags, which respond to signals sent out by special reader devices, > have in some tests demonstrated broadcast ranges up to 30 feet. Reader > devices have proven to possess similar "sensing" ranges. This is what has > some privacy advocaters worried, including one testifying tomorrow before > the Virginia legislators. > > "The biggest problem is that these tags are remotely readable," said > Christopher Calabrese, council for the American Civil Liberties Union's > Technology and Liberty Program. > > RFID tags inside driver's licenses will make it easy for government > agents with readers to sweep large areas and identify protestors > participating in a march, for example. Privacy advocates also fear that > crooks sitting on street corners could remotely gather personal > information from individual's wallets, such as their birth dates and home > addresses -- the same information many bank employees use to verify > account holders' identities. > > Information from card readers could also be coupled with global > positioning system data and relayed to satellites, helping the government > form a comprehensive picture of the comings and goings of its citizens. > > Driver's licenses with RFID tags may also become a tool that stalkers use > to follow their victims, said Calabrese. "We're talking about a potential > security nightmare." > > But opponents of the use of RFID and other technologies in driver's > licenses and state issued ID cards are conflating RFID's technological > potential with its potential for abuse by government authorities, said > Robert D. Atkinson, vice president at the Progressive Policy Institute. > > "Putting a chip or biometric data on a driver's license doesn't change > one iota the rules under which that information can be used," said > Atkinson. > > The Virginia legislators may balk at the use of RFID in driver's > licenses, however, unless they can be proven to be immune from use by > spies and identity thieves. > > "I can't see us using RFID until we're comfortable we can without > encroaching on individual privacy, and ensure it won't be used as a Big > Brother technology by the government," said Joe May, chairman of the > Virginia General Assembly's House Science and Technology Committee.
<<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/politics/11identity.html?ei=5006&en=f8 8c8de775a34cd0&ex=1098158400&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position= >> Congress Close to Establishing Rules for Driver's Licenses By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 - Following a recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission, the House and Senate are moving toward setting rules for the states that would standardize the documentation required to obtain a driver's license, and the data the license would have to contain. Critics say the plan would create a national identification card. But advocates say it would make it harder for terrorists to operate, as well as reduce the highway death toll by helping states identify applicants whose licenses had been revoked in other states. The Senate version of the intelligence bill includes an amendment, passed by unanimous consent on Oct. 1, that would let the secretary of homeland security decide what documents a state would have to require before issuing a driver's license, and would also specify the data that the license would have to include for it to meet federal standards. The secretary could require the license to include fingerprints or eye prints. The provision would allow the Homeland Security Department to require use of the license, or an equivalent card issued by motor vehicle bureaus to nondrivers for identification purposes, for access to planes, trains and other modes of transportation. The bill does not give the department the authority to force the states to meet the federal standards, but it would create enormous pressure on them to do so. After a transition period, the department could decide to accept only licenses issued under the rules as identification at airports. The House's version of the intelligence bill, passed Friday, would require the states to keep all driver's license information in a linked database, for quick access. It also calls for "an integrated network of screening points that includes the nation's border security system, transportation system and critical infrastructure facilities that the secretary determines need to be protected against terrorist attack." The two versions will go to a House-Senate conference committee. Some civil liberties advocates say they are horrified by the proposal. "I think it means we're going to end up with a police state, essentially, by allowing the secretary of homeland security to designate the sensitive areas and allowing this integrating screening system," said Marv Johnson, the legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. If the requirement to show the identification card can be applied to any mode of transportation, he said, that could eventually include subways or highways, and the result would be "to require you to have some national ID card, essentially, in order to go from point A to point B." James C. Plummer Jr., a policy analyst at Consumer Alert, a nonprofit organization based here, said, "You're looking at a system of internal passports, basically." But a Senate aide who was involved in drafting the bipartisan language of the amendment said that in choosing where to establish a checkpoint, the provision "does not give the secretary of homeland security any new authority." The aide, who asked not to be identified because of his involvement in drafting the measure, said it would not create a national identification card but would standardize a form of identification routinely issued by states. Representative Candice S. Miller, the Michigan Republican who drafted the license section of the House measure, said, "I don't think this is anything that should cause anyone concern." Of the 50 states, 48 are members of interstate compacts that exchange information on moving violations, so that a driver from, say, Maryland, who picks up a speeding ticket in Florida will accumulate points in his home state. But Michigan and Wisconsin are not members of a compact. Ms. Miller said one purpose of the provision she wrote was to fix that problem. A spokesman for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrations, which represents the state officials who issue driver's licenses, said linking the databases and strengthening control over who could get a license was long overdue. "The American public should be outraged to know that departments of motor vehicles nationwide lack the capability to do the jobs we've asked them to do," said the spokesman, Jason King. In both houses, the legislation is geared to respond to numerous recommendations made by the Sept. 11 commission. For years before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, law enforcement officials, especially those concerned with identity theft, argued that the states should have more rigorous standards for issuing driver's licenses. But the commission pointed out that "fraud in identification documents is no longer just a problem of theft." _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
