Passports go electronic with new microchip

In fact, data skimming is already common in other arenas, says Richard Doherty, research director for the Envisioneering Group, a technology-assessment company out of Seaford, N.Y. "Bluejacking," where someone with the right equipment can hijack your phone, grab your directory, history of calls, and electronic serial number just by walking past you while you're on the phone, and "war-driving," where an individual drives down the street with a computer that maps all the networks that are free along with their IDs - these are already significant security issues, he says.

"This whole world of wireless is one that, yes, it has tremendous convenience, but it's increasingly threatened by a cloud of easy-to-exploit criminal means," Mr. Doherty says.

But why not choose a contact chip, where there would be no possibility of skimming, asks Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "You don't have to have a 'contactless' integrated circuit," he says. "There was another way to go, which was to put an electronic strip in the passport that would require contact. It would make theft far less likely."

The State Department says it's just following international standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), under the umbrella of the United Nations. In May 2003, the ICAO specified the RFID and facial biometric or digitized head shot now being adopted by other countries at the behest of the United States. All countries that are part of the US visa-waiver program must use the new passports by Oct. 26, 2005.

Mr. Steinhardt calls the State Department's approach "policy laundering," and says the US pushed through the standards against the reservations of the Europeans. "Bush says at the G8 meeting, 'We have to adhere to the global standard,' as though we had nothing to do with it. It was masterful from a political perspective," he says in exasperation.

But even the ICAO, in the small print of a document published last May titled, "Use of Contactless ICs in Machine Readable Travel Documents," acknowledges the new RFID chips won't be foolproof: "... it is unlikely that unauthorized reading will occur. However, this cannot be completely ruled out."

Although the data on the chip will not be encrypted, for the sake of easing "interoperability" across international borders, Ms. Shannon says, the government does plan to incorporate a security feature that will largely prevent skimming. Embedded fibers in the front and back covers will shield the passport from electronic probing, at least while it is closed. Other security features in the new passports include a digital or electronic seal that will ensure the document is authentic and smart-card technology that renders the chip inoperable if it is tampered with using energy waves or radio waves.

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