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U.S. Biometric Passports By Late 2004
truthsearch writes "The Register is reporting 'Current plans call for the new passport books to include a contactless smart chip based on the 14443 standard, with a minimum of 32 Kbytes of EEPROM storage. The chip will contain a compressed full-face image for use as a biometric. European biometric passports, by contrast, are planned to feature both retinal and fingerprint recognition biometrics on their smart cards.' How they tie this to '9/11 fears' is curious considering the hijackers had valid paperwork."
Even though we have better-than-32K resolution in the
Analog photos in our passports, I bet that at least half
The Slashdot readership's back hair is standing on end.
Maybe this is a privacy concern. Maybe. Especially if
You're concerned about automatic face recognition and such.
Anyone could create a device which could match your face from a
Scan of your passport photo. And your retinas can even be
Scanned while you're in line. What's the big deal here?
They ratchet up security procedures, requiring everybody to show ID when flying, but when they decide that the aircraft went down not because of terrorism but because of a design flaw, do they roll back the tightened security?
Not on your life.
Face it lads, we're property. Nothing more.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
How would you not tie it to 9/11? When you want total control, you will do anything to achieve it. Even using a tragic event as a means to what you want.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Woah! This is going way too far....A picture in a Passport! The audacity! Won't anyone think of the 4th admendment? I should quit my job and join the Michigan Milita. Viva La Revolution!
Come on people....If this had been done 5 years ago the response would have been "A digital picture in my passport? SWEET! One more thing I can try to hack..." Not everything is a facist government conspiracy to rob you of your freedom. Sometimes it's just using technology to make something better.
I don't mind having my biometric information stored in my passport. What I care about is having my biometric information in a government database. Once the government starts collecting this information, they're going to save a copy for themselves. Then the database will be available whenever they want to determine who someone is, such as when analyzing photos of protests.
It didn't mention this in the article so I thought I'd post here and ask. I just recently purchased a US passport which doesn't expire for 10 years. Will I be required to purchase the 'upgrade' to the new passport or can I continue to use it until it expires in 2013?
:(
With all the outstanding passports I couldn't imagine the US Gov would re-issue new ones for free. Hopefully we'll all be 'grandfathered' in, although since it is their property they could revoke them in Oct. 2004.
Thanks,
--
Matt
As someone who lives off his passport on a daily basis this seems like a gimick. Passports are totally insecure documents and always will be because they are used by people who leave their country and its laws behind.
The real wake up call about passports happened for me when my first one expired. I had memorized the number and assumed that naturally this ultra important piece of ID would be kept for life --not a chance.
I specifically requested to keep my old number and the feds said, no its not allowed.
This struck me as totally bizarre, but by that point I'd travelled enough to have met people who casually threw away their passports and got new ones whenever they got into visa problems so I wasn't all that surprised. Passports are a joke and always will be.
When will the government learn that forward thinking foreign policy is an infinitely more efficient means of increasing security than technological card-house building.
As much as I like the idea of more government tech jobs, I can't help but worry about our national security in the era of us-vs-them foreign policy.
The point is that this wouldn't help because ALL the hijackers came here LEGALLY! The hijackers didn't try to use fake passports or anything like that. Also almost all the hijackers (if not all) were relatively unknown to us until they did their crime.
Hmmm... Pie...
It will be interesting to see how the public reacts to this. Done correctly, it will increase the security of the passport without really compromising privacy. If the format of the data on the smart card is completely documented, it will be easy to verify that the only information is being stored appears in printed form on the passport itself. Since all of the information in printed form is being stored someplace now, it's hard to argue that a smart-card version of this information disadvantages the traveler somehow.
The presence of the digital signature, however, provides MUCH stronger assurances that these identity credentials aren't forged; this seems to me to be a very good thing indeed.
"How they tie this to '9/11 fears' is curious considering the hijackers had valid paperwork."
The 9/11 hijackers had valid paperwork because various government agencies were not doing their jobs. These agencies are now under intense scruitiny, and are trying to do a better job to prevent potential terrorists from entering the country again. Smart chip passports will be much harder and more expensive to forge, making it harder for terrorists to travel using false identities. Overall, it's a small, important step in a larger program to keep the USA safe.
This honestly doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. Consider that this changes very little...
... seems to eliminate a less sophisticated avenue of fraud...
This sort of matches my viewpoint too. I mean, as a Brit living in the USA I already have an ID card with multiple features to make it hard to fake and biometric data (photo and fingerprint) - its called a "green card" although only the lettering on the back is green anymore. Wouldnt surprise me in the slightest to discover that theres all sorts of data encoded on it in machine-readable form from my visa application through to the final interview when they authorised giving me the card in the first place. I havent looked into it in any detail because I dont give a rats ass. They have the data anyway and the rules that govern its use dont change just because they stick it on a card. The harder it is for some jerk with a semtex fetish to fake one of these and maybe pretend to be me the happier I'll be. Personally I'd rather not get a vacation in Cuba thanks to identity theft....
I had a
What this fixes is the problem of HUMAN recognition of other humans.. which is remarkably bad. How many 16 year old kids borrow an older kids ID to sneak into a club or by liquor (hell I've done it). These are two different people, yet 90% of the time it works without a hitch.
When your in customs, and you have thousands and thousands of people coming into the country.. the margin for error just goes up and up. Screw 9/11, this is just a good idea. It's nothing that we don't have already.. it's just a more efficient and more accurate system that better ensures the person who has the passport matches up with the person that passport was assigned to.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
Your passport image has a hologram overlayed over it, which makes any attempt to scan or copy it functionally impossible--sure it can be done, but the resulting image is very obviously not original. I know of no hack around this.
This digital copy, OTOH, will have no such protection. Oh sure, it will be encrypted and scrambled and blah blah blah, but anyone with half a brain and a propensity to scan the tech headlines of the past decade can tell you it's a matter of when, not if, it is defeated (e.g. CSS, Windows Media, "Enhanced CD" copy protection, half a dozen others).
So, to sum up: the photo on your passport now: not hackable. The photo stored in your passport 5 years from now: hackable. You can see why some claim this will degrade our privacy.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
And further considering that your country has made hundreds of these little, and some not-so little, changes over the past twenty years (remember the War on Drugs and Patriot Act?) there's little worry that you'll ever lose basic rights and freedoms. After all, hundreds of these little steps never add up large steps, right?
Please tell me where does it say that you have the right (not just privilege) to demonstrate anonymously?
This question has stumped several activists already.
Once again, the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution:
m endment09/
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/a
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Annotations
Rights Retained by the People
Aside from contending that a bill of rights was unnecessary, the Federalists responded to those opposing ratification of the Constitution because of the lack of a declaration of fundamental rights by arguing that inasmuch as it would be impossible to list all rights it would be dangerous to list some because there would be those who would seize on the absence of the omitted rights to assert that government was unrestrained as to those. 1 Madison adverted to this argument in presenting his proposed amendments to the House of Representatives. ''It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.'' 2 It is clear from its text and from Madison's statement that the Amendment states but a rule of construction, making clear that a Bill of Rights might not by implication be taken to increase the powers of the national government in areas not enumerated, and that it does not contain within itself any guarantee of a right or a proscription of an infringement. 3 Recently, however, the Amendment has been construed to be positive affirmation of the existence of rights which are not enumerated but which are nonetheless protected by other provisions.
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In other words, in order to protect the First Amendment rights of an individual, a right to privacy must be construed, else, as my "First Amendment Zone" abuse citation illustrates, there is no First Amendment right to free speech, if the speaker knows that his identity is being serriptitiously deduced and cataloged by opponents in the government, presumably to harrass or destroy the speaker.
The Ninth implies rights necessary to enable the enumerated rights. It denies the goverment the ability to increase its powers in the areas not enumerated, if those new powers exist soley to disable enumerated rights.