HOMELAND SECURITY RFI HEIGHTENS PUBLIC CONCERNS OVER RFID
DHS Wants to Track Spychips in Moving Cars Going 55 MPH
"Call it Big Brother on steroids," say privacy advocates
Katherine
Albrecht and Liz McIntyre, co-authors of "Spychips: How Major
Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with
RFID."
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking for beefed
up
RFID technology that can read government-issued documents from up to
25
feet away, pinpoint pedestrians on street corners, and glean the
identity of people whizzing by in cars at 55 miles per hour.
Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is a controversial technology
that
uses tiny microchips to track items from a distance. These RFID
microchips have earned the nickname "spychips" because each
contains a
unique identification number, like a Social Security number for
things,
that can be read silently and invisibly by radio waves. Privacy and
civil liberties advocates are opposed to the use of the technology on
consumer items and government documents because it can be used to
track
people without their knowledge or consent.
Albrecht and McIntyre have uncovered a Request for Information (RFI)
issued by the Department of Homeland Security that underscores these
privacy and civil liberties concerns. DHS seeks "superior remote
data
capture" that "offers significant improvements in
performance" over the
RFID technology currently being trialed in its U.S. Visit program
border
security initiatives. The RFI indicates this more potent tracking
technology might be used in other initiatives and by other federal
agencies.
"While the RFI is directed at border security, we're very
concerned the
government will use this tracking technology in our driver's
licenses,"
said McIntyre, who is already opposed to the implications of the Real
ID
Act that passed last spring. That Act gives DHS the power to set
uniform
national driver's license standards. "Already the Real ID Act
creates a
de facto national ID since all Americans need a driver's license to
participate in modern society," she observed. "Imagine
having a remotely
readable national ID that can be scanned by the government as you
drive
by or walk down the street."
A copy of the RFI is posted at the authors' website:
http://www.spychips.com/DHS-RFID.pdf
DHS is seeking RFID devices that "can be sensed remotely,
passively, and
automatically....The device must be readable under all kinds of indoor
and outdoor conditions... and while carried by pedestrians or vehicle
occupant."
DHS has set "several high-level goals" for the reading of
RFID "tokens"
carried by travelers, including:
- The solution must...identify the exact location of the read such as
a
specific pedestrian or vehicle lane in which the token is read.
- The solution presented must sense the remote data capture technology
carried by a pedestrian traveler at distances up to 25 ft.
- The solution presented must sense all tokens carried by travelers
seated in a single automobile, truck, or bus at a distance up to 25
ft.
while moving at speeds up to 55 mph.
- For bus traffic, the solution must sense up to 55 tokens.
- For a successful read, the traveler should not have to hold or
present
the token in any special way to enable the reading of the token's
information. The goal is for the reader to sense a token carried on a
traveler's person or anywhere in a vehicle.
