Attention, all OSA friends,

Katherine Albrecht, Ed.D., is about to leave for Phoenix, where she and other advocates will be briefing the Arizona state legislature on privacy issues associated with new remotely-readable, spychipped “enhanced” driver’s licenses. If you are in the area, you are invited to join us on Thursday evening for a public town hall meeting on the topic sponsored by the Arizona ACLU tomorrow night.

As you may know, several states, including Arizona, Washington, Vermont, and New York have agreed to issue the RFID-tagged cards for border-crossing purposes. The idea is that state residents who voluntarily pay an extra $40 to receive the remotely-trackable cards will be allowed to cross more “efficiently” into Canada or Mexico, since border officials will see them coming before they reach the guard station.

photo credit: myuibe

To anyone who’s clued in about RFID, the spychipped driver’s licenses are a complete privacy nightmare, however. They can be silently read from 20-feet away, through a person’s wallet, pocket, backpack, or purse — even when the target is in a moving car. They are unencrypted and contain a unique ID number that can be used to identify and track people miles from the border — indeed, anywhere the government chooses to put a reader.

But it’s not just the government that could use the cards to track and surveil people. Anyone with a rudimentary RFID reader can remotely access the the unique ID number on the card. Retailers could use them to ID customers as they walk in the door. Marketers could use them to track people around the store. Stalkers could use them to track their victims. Terrorists could scan for them in crowds and pinpoint Americans traveling in other countries. Hackers could duplicate the signal emitted by chipped licenses to impersonate people. The list of potential abuses for the ill-conceived ID card are staggering.

If you are in Phoenix and would like to learn more, the ACLU is hosting a Town Hall Meeting tomorrow evening (Thursday, 3/13) at 7:00 PM at the University of Arizona. She will deliver a PowerPoint presentation on RFID-tagged ID cards and sign books after the event, so be sure to bring your copy of Spychips (or you can pick one up while you’re there).

The event is free and open to the public. Further details are available below my signature, or on-line here: Press Release

If you cannot attend in person, please send your prayers and well wishes with us to the state of Arizona, as we work to inform the public about the encroaching police state.

Your Online Security Authority,

Bill Wardell

Please support, Dr. Katherine Albrecht
Founder and Director, CASPIAN: Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering — Opposing supermarket loyalty cards and other retail surveillance schemes since 1999

http://www.spychips.com/
http://www.nocards.org/

Other Posts From Around The Web:

Bloor Research release a Technical Report and Market Update on … – RFID middleware is the first level of software that one comes across in the complete RFID stack. This software performs the necessary tasks of converting the information picked up by readers, event processing, applying business rules, … Packaging group set up to create global RFID standards – EPCglobal, a subsidiary of global standards organisation company GS1, is forming a packaging group to create standards for the use of RFID in the sector. What RFID really needs to mean – action! – Now this is all true – RFID information from the edge of your organization will create an opportunity to change your business processes at the operational interface – down at the sharp end. The volume of data, and the speed at which it … IS RFID READY TO FLY? – After several years of pilots, OEMs and MRO facilities alike are beginning to implement RFID technology in their operations. Here’s a look at how six industry leaders are applying the technology today.

Written by: OSAblogger / Bill Wardell - Please Read Our Latest OSA eZine Edition

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OSA Technorati Tags: ACLU, Katherine Albrecht, RFID-tagged cards

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