Government officials say RFID makes life easier, privacy advocates worried

You think !?

"by Associated Press
Sunday July 12, 2009, 12:30 AM
AP PhotoThis is one of Vermont's enhanced driver's licenses.
Government officials say embedding passports, driver's licenses and the like with radio frequency identification, or RFID, is a 21st century application of technology that will make life easier and Americans safer.

But privacy advocates fear that RFID paired with other technologies could make people trackable without their knowledge or consent.

These chips have the potential to make everybody a blip on someone's radar screen, critics say. Some have already begun calling the practice "Little Brother" in a nod to the Big Brother of George Orwell's "1984."

Neville Pattinson, an executive for Gemalto Inc., a major supplier of microchipped cards, says placing RFIDs in driver's licenses and passports makes them vulnerable "to attacks from hackers, identity thieves and possibly even terrorists." More must be done, he says, to protect information linked to the chips.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been promoting the use of RFID, despite warnings from its own advisory committee. To date, about 192,000 enhanced driver's licenses using the chips have been issued in Washington, Vermont, Michigan and New York.

In the video below, a hacker named Chris Paget shows how RFID-embedded identification cards have made it possible for him to collect stranger's information with equipment he bought on eBay for less than $200.
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