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Privacy vs. Security: Biometric E-Passports
ftblguy writes "Countries such as the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Canada, US, Australia, and New Zealand are currently looking into adding RFID chips to citizens' passports. The chips would contain data such as a digital image of the person's face. A real-time facial scan of the carrier of the passport would then be matched to the data encoded in the chip. But privacy advocates such as CASPIAN are concerned that this data could get into the hands of the wrong people or that governments could use the data to track their citizens as they go about their personal business. But, with all of the terrorist threats lately, bringing passport documents into the digital world is sure to increase security."
Soon they'll want to implant RFID tags (or something similar) in your left molar. Everyone will be able to be traced from a simpe computer terminal. Great for parents who's kids are kidnapped, or hikers lost in the mountains, bad for everyone else.
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Biometric systems are not secure as a means of authentication, they are too easy to fake.
The three ways you can authenticate a person are:
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What they are
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What they have
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What they know
A good security system combines at least two of these. This one does, but since it only authenticates against what you have, it is not very good. If each passport had a key encrypted with a passphrase (like in PGP), and you needed the passphrase to use it, you would have good protection against stolen passports.But these don't do that.
bringing passport documents into the digital world is sure to increase security."
Surely noone believes that do they? Why?
Digital is inherently easier to copy then analogue - I think this would decrease security.
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Whenever I hear "with all of the terrorist threats lately, bringing passport documents into the digital world is sure to increase security," I cringe. The idea that something which sounds like increased security will actually amount to increased security without any real analysis is an all too common reaction these days.
Think about the TSA (Thousands Standing Around|Take Scissors Away) - does taking knitting needles make anyone safer? The biggest change in airline safety because of 9/11 was 9/11. Before folks figured that they could just quietly land in Cuba and live on peanuts for a few days before they would be brought home. All that has changed, but it didn't require billions of dollars, air marshals, or any of the other visible crap the government did to create the illusion of security.
While biometric passports might make identification more certain, you need to fully look at who/where/how passports are used, and see if these measures will actually be useful in the real world. Urg.
You are a retard.
The 11/9/2001 terrorists had valid passports. This system would have done nothing to prevent that attack.
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How the hell will this protect us from terrorism? I'm sick and tired of our governments trying to implement 1984 under our noses in the name of security.
For example, I'm sure no-one would notice if a farmer bought a load of fertilizer and diesel fuel, and no one would notice if he drove a van into the centre of some large city, but that's all he'd need to do to blow up a lot of people.
The only way we can truly protect ourselves is to quite literally monitor everyone's actions 24-7, but if that were the case I'd rather live in North Korea.
Why should that increase security? Perhaps there will be even more opportunities for forgeries. From Bruce Schneier' Crypto-Gram
There's one other problem with identity documents: the ease of getting legitimate documents in fraudulent names. Several of the 9/11 terrorists obtained fraudulent IDs from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles by paying a corrupt employee $1000 each. These weren't fake IDs. These were real IDs in fake names, with all the holograms and micro printing and whatever else the driver's licenses have to make them hard to forge.
exactly, how about making the authorities show they are capable of understanding and using regular passports before they make things 10 times more complicated with RFID ones.
Prove first that these new technologies will in fact increase security and then I'll argue the privacy case.
But, with all of the terrorist threats lately, bringing passport documents into the digital world is sure to increase security
First of all, and as 300 other comments would be pointing out by now, all those bastards on 9/11 planes had valid passports too. Whether passport is valid or not doesn't prove nothing.
Plus, IMHO, its harder to forge a non-digital passport. Thats a real skill. You can't walk into Radioshack, buy $70 worth of equipment, come back home and start playing with the RFIDs on the passport if its digital and all.
If its a non-digital passport, sure as hell if you indeed plan on forging/tampering it, you will have to find someone highly skilled that can accomplish that. And, if its a bad forgery job, its very easy for a human being to spot that.
My 0.02
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Ok ive RTFA and it doesn't explain anywhere why these things need RFID. There's absolutely no reason for it! Sticking all this information on standard 'smart-cards' would be just as effective (well i don't know how effective or what its really supposed to do anyway but it would produce the same effect). In the article it just says these are designed to only operate up to 10cm (we all know what that means) but 10cm is still enough for someone to scan your back pocket! The only possible argument is that the contacts on chips wear out and people are too lazy to stick their cards in a reader! That's not an argument. So the only thing we can conclude is:
the people in charge of this are:
a) totally stupid
b) totally ignorant
c) getting a buy 1bn get 1bn free deal on RFID
d) designing this so they can scan people without their knowledge
take your pick.
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This isn't about the war on terrorism or even "regular" crime. It is about the war on illegal papers as used in illegal immigration.
Another point is that many european countries are getting closer and closer to introducing mandatory ID to be carried at all times. Add RFID tags and the next easy step will be to add RFID receivers everywhere to track every person.
What, current law would prohibit it? So? This is europe, home of the holocaust. It is not what use tracking everyone will have now. It is what it will be used for 20 yrs from now.
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Because we're not scared enough...yet. As things ratchet up in the loss of freedoms, we will feel "safer." Each "event" will scare us to agreeing to the next level.
For small losses of freedom, a simple raising of the terror alert level to red (or violet, or puce, or whatever the top is) will suffice. But to start chipping people, it'll probably require another attack (and that attack will come). It may also take the form of "convienience" - if you get chipped, you can walk right onto the plane. Then it will be come an "inconvienience" - if you're one fo the few not chipped its, "please step aside for a body cavity search."
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Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You mean the ones based upon ancient and/or falsified information, much of it obtained under TORTURE by the U.S. Military?
The "war on terrr" has only three purposes:
1. To make key members of the US govt. richer
2. To control citizens every move
3. To realise biblical prophecy by igniting a "clash of civilisations" between east and west, ultimately resulting in the Zionists dream of "greater israel", leading the way for armageddon. The palestinians and a billion and a half arabs are standing in the way of this.
That last bit might sound a bit far-fetched, but ask any fundamentalist christian zionist - for example one of the ones that have successflly brought about a coup in the U.S government.
Now - you're not going to like any of these reasons - which is just why the govt want your biometric information on a national database so dissenters may be traced whereever they are.
In order to do this, they have to scare you witless. This is what the endless "war on terror" is here for. The "terrorists" don't wear robes or turbans. They wear stars and stripes tie pins and appear on FOX news.
Why don't we enact foreign policies that don't piss off the rest of the world?
Or is this virtually impossible? Are there any good reasons for we the west is hated so much, that are absolutely necessary to our survival, and to others' survival? How differently could we do these things?
But, with all of the terrorist threats lately, bringing passport documents into the digital world is sure to increase security.
... will it catch enough terrorists to matter? Will it catch any?
And will our society still be recognizably "free" at that point?
Surely this is a troll. Surely.
The question is not whether this will increase security. It won't, of course, since America is a goldfish bowl with too many ways in and no way to control them all. Terrorists are perfectly willing to spend years and millions of dollars (pounds, rubles, whatever) planning each operation and they will find a way in. And I wouldn't be surprised to find this kind of embedded RFID system get hacked and be readily available on the underground market. At some point the things will need to be programmed, and if nothing else a supply of blank cards and a programmer will be obtained from whoever makes them. I mean, come on, black-market Social Security cards can be found and some of them are apparently indistinguishable from the real thing because they are the real thing. It's called an "inside job."
The real question is: from whom must we be secured? And why? I've yet to see any rational discourse on the subject from the OHS or any of the other government organs involved that really makes the case that these devices (or any other form of technologically advanced tracking of the citizenry) will help in the (ahem) "War on Terrorism." The net effect will be to inconvenience and incarcerate some number of ordinary citizens who haven't a terrorist bone in their bodies while the real nut jobs use their hacked RFID's to walk right through airport security.
England has spent an incredible amount of money in wiring their country with video cameras. The justification for this "investment" (and I use the term loosely) was to catch terrorists. Well, the camera network has certainly helped in apprehending purse snatchers and other petty thieves but things are still getting blown up over there, so one wonders just how effective it really is. Were heading down the same road, and when all is said and done
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.