San Luis Obispo Tribune

01/04/05

When traveling abroad these days, most Americans probably wouldn't want the contents of their passports to be secretly read by strangers.

But when a new high-tech passport system goes into effect as early as next spring, that's exactly what critics say could happen. ... The system is designed to prevent forged passports by making sure the original passport holder and the person standing at the immigration counter are one and the same. The problem, security and privacy experts say, is that the technical standard chosen for the system leaves passport data unprotected. The technology allows data on the chip to be read remotely using radio frequency identification or RFID...

http://tinyurl.com/7ywds


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp