In February of 2005, the U.S. State Department published a proposed amendment, in the Federal Register, of U.S. passport regulations. The proposal sought public comment on the idea of embedding RFID chips in all newly-issued passports beginning in 2006. Over 2,300 comments were received in response, and more than 98% of them were negative, focusing on privacy and security concerns. Since the initial proposal had no provisions for encryption or access control of the stored data, people were concerned (rightly so) that their identities could be snooped by anyone with appropriate reader equipment, at any time and without their knowledge. Now, eight months later, the State Department has made some changes for their final draft. Do you think they went far enough?
RFID Passports: Improved, but still flawed?
