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RFID Tags in Law Enforcement
RFID tags seem to be the flavor of the month for law enforcement officials in the tracking of individuals both foreign and domestic. pin_gween writes "In an effort to speed up entry to the US, The Dept. of Homeland Security has begun a trial using RFID tags in certain visitors' papers. The tag is embedded in paperwork and "chip readers note the entry or exit of visitors who pass by and transmit that information to a government-maintained database." In addition, Saeed al-Sahaf writes "Security officials gathered Monday at a Canadian border crossing to mark the first test of this radio RFID system" Relatedly LexNaturalis writes "Wired News has an article about England testing RFID chips in license plates that can transmit VINs and other data to appropriate receivers. According to the article, the United States will be 'closely watching the British trial as they contemplate initiating their own tests of the plates, which incorporate radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags to make vehicles electronically trackable.' Naturally privacy advocates are decrying the move by stating that unlike electronic toll passes, these new plates will not be anonymous." We mentioned the concept of tracking visitors via RFID in July.
Tracking vehicles with RFID may not so bad - after all vehicles have licence plates...
RFID tracking PEOPLE on the other hand is worrysome.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
As long as this is done on the papers/documents the person is supposed to have, and not on their person, I suppose this is a step forward.
In a way, it isn't very different from giving a person a card that they swipe at the terminal instead of paper that a person has to read/stamp. Now, if they start putting these on people, thats scary!
There are 11 types of people. Those who understand binary, those who don't and those who are sick of this lame joke.
RFIDs can be swapped. If people aren't comparing them to the documents and verifying the identity by other means before entry into the central database, these RFIDs can be used to actually fool and interfere with person tracking. If they are being compared, those other means are the better, more efficient, and not unnecessarily redundant means to track people. So, in summary, this is unnecessary. RFID tags at the border solve no problems and actually create more. But it does fund a specific business, so Congress will gladly fund it for the campaign kickbacks.
People will be clamoring over the fact "the Man is invading my privacy!" and then beg for more security and question how "we let so many terrorists get by". For security, you need security provisions. If you don't want guns at a concert, you're going to have to be searched. It's just how it is.
The fun arises when you think about the different levels of security, the personal information gathered, how the information is used, where it is kept, etc. I have no problem having my auto information on an RFID tag somewhere on the car. Hell, my credit cards have more personal information than these little tags. In the idea of more security, I'd be fine with having my passport contain an RFID tag. Driver's licenses already hold so much info, why not a passport that lets people into the country? I'm not sure I want ALL my info on these things though. And who I want to hold the info. Identity theft could get REAL hairy depending on what info is gathered. Track my car, I don't care. Let my license have my vital info (age, sex, height, weight...maybe even blood type and other medical things for an emergency situation) if you need but be damn sure that you keep that info safe and if not, YOU are responsible for fixing the mess, not ME.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
And as a nice side-effect, they can track you wherever you go. But you have nothing to hide, right? RIGHT?
*insert bad guys of the moment here
There are 11 types of people. Those who understand binary, those who don't and those who are sick of this lame joke.
Am I the only one that clicked on the women's 3/4 sleeve just because it has the nicest breasts? Oh god I need a life.
Watch out Speeders if the RF plates become a reality. Sensors along roads take your position, computers extrapolate speed and two days later you get your ticket in in the mail.
And Big Brother Watching you? You wouldn't even need the software predictions mentioned a few weeks ago -- just follow the RF tag around town
Ignorance is not a crime; neither should it be a way of life
Congress control $ = inmates run the asylum
Here is a piggy back question: If you were going to implement a large-scale RFID system (let's say license plates in California), how would you address the issues of fraud, hacking, etc.? It seems to me that RFID would be an attractive taget for hackers (both for proof-of-concept and malicious purposes). Do you encrypt the data being transmitted by the RFID? How do you protect the privacy of the RFIDed people? Knowing that someone could use this technology along with several receivers to triangulate any vehicle's position and therefore follow it without-a-trace, how would you protect this sort of criminal (or law enforcement) abuse?
... good RFID uses in a while. Sure you hear the tin-foil hat stuff all the time, but where's the grocery store where I don't have to stand in line, I just pass my cart between two scanners and everything in the cart appears on the screen?
One that really interested me was where a handgun would only fire if the user was wearing a ring on their finger. Of course the ring would have an RFID chip embedded in it. Police officers have a high incidence of being shot with their own gun, whereas if the gun wouldn't fire without the ring, officers could feel much safer.
Parents who want a gun in the house but are worried about having children around it would feel that there is another line of defense that would keep their kid from accidentally shooting themselves. I don't have children but I'd pay extra for the added level of security.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
What was wrong with barcodes? It seems to me that for the intended uses, barcodes would have worked just as well without the attendant privacy implications. Why on earth would the U.S. voluntarily give criminals and terrorists the tools to target people according to their nationality?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Silly privacy-advocate! The forehead and right hand are expressly reserved for the Mark of the Beast.
Tattoos, on the other hand, go on the chest or the inner forearm.
You can put them in license plates. Afterall, the only difference will be being able to read the plate number from any angle within a distance.
You can put them near the barcode of products bought in store, for the same reasons as above. Plus it can prevent shoplifting a lot easier. Scan it in, scan it out, no problem.
But under no situation stick it in a human or into our ID cards. That crosses the line.
Instead of requiring RFID in plates, why don't we create a car tracker system that is totally opt-in. The people who want it, pay for it themselves. No government intervention necessary. We could even run a company based on this idea. I propse we name the company Lojack
This could be useful for tracking sensitive documents in archives, and tracking when someone like Sandy Berger violates security and steals documents to use in a political campaign.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
What about a system wherein each individual could choose which pieces of information he or she was willing to have the RFID transmit? Like,
First Name: No
Last Name: Yes
SSN: No
Gender: No
etc?
If a person felt comfortable allowing the government to scan his or her information and thereby clear faster, he or she could do so, but if a person did not feel comfortable with that he or she would still be able to pass through the normal way. Would this be a possible compromise between privacy and security?
Because car thieves are not bright enough to change license plates? Sorry, RFID tags in license plates can only serve to track law abiding citizens -- they are simply too easy for criminals to circumvent.
Liberty you never use is liberty you lose.
You know, it's also possible that, if implemented right (I know, fat chance, but still...) that RFID identification could increase privacy and security.
Consider: one of the big problems of modern life is you have to prove your ID, credit and legitimacy to all kinds of people all over the place, with the consequences that sooner or later your private info leaks out and bad guys can get ahold of it, zap, identity theft, credit card fraud, and so forth.
But what if something like an RFID tag could be provided by one tightly controlled source, and it gave unimpeachable evidence of right to be there on the airplane, credit enough to buy the laptop from Best Buy, whatever.
Then imagine: you walk into the Best Buy with your bankcard with the RFID tag. You pick up the laptop and walk out. Now, the BB security can let you out, because the bank's card has told them you've credit enough to buy the laptop and given them some secret code that guarantees them payment, and when they get that payment they have to give your digital assistant a secret code that guarantees you can get warranty repairs. But your card hasn't told them a damn thing else about you. You haven't had to tell BB your address or e-mail or bank name or even your own name. No junk mail from Best Buy, no tracking your purchases, no poking their nose into your credit history...
Same thing with the airplane. You get an airline ticket after having proved who you are and where you can be found, and in some way -- OK, things get a little fuzzy here, but bear with me -- that you're safe and can be trusted, and then you walk into the airport and onto the airplane. The chip says "legit, allowed on plane to Boston at 6.47" but nothing else. No one checks your driver's license or passport eight zillion times, no one bends you over to search for bombs up your...but I digress...
Anyway, one of the reasons we have to send out all this extra, unnecessary, privacy-endangering information about ourselves is because we don't have one rock-solid unforgeable way of identifying those narrow aspects of ourselves (our citizenship, credit, student status, license to drive, et cetera) that are legitimate necessities of certain transactions. Maybe RFIDs with some digital signature technology could provide one? Maybe the future could be more private and secure?
Or have I had too much caffeine already? [Peers anxiously into empty mug...]
I'm sorry put yeah, for one, someone can hack a way to read all that information, now a thief has your address. And where does it stop? Once the government starts using RFID, they'll come up with all sorts of "neat" ways to use it. This is just to get us comfortable with the technology.
I always have my tin foil hat on, so no .
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
The FBI could also scan cars around rallies to find "threats" to the president's peace of mind, AKA people with known anti-Bush tendencies, to arrest and harrass; the SS could use it to track dissidents... after all, they're doing it right now, with current tech.
This is not a drill; this is a police state. Don't give them any more toys than those they already abuse.
In a perfect world we wouldn't be concerned about privacy, we wouldn't need checks and balances on government power, we wouldn't need laws.
BUT
It's not a perfect world.
All forms of power are eventually corrupting, in the rare event that a particular person isn't tempted in a way they are vulnerable to then time itself will cycle up someone who is.
All structures in which power is accumulated is a beacon to those who would use it for good as well as those who would use it for personal gain, and many will switch from good to gain over the long run.
Power can be even more insidious, you don't need to wield the ultimate power to be affected. You can in fact find satisfaction in exercising what control you can. Many people who for one reason or another seek power over other's gravitate to the twin bastions of abused power.
GOVERNMENT and BUREAUCRACY
Worse yet, in many positions where you have both the power and the desire to do good. You encounter those who would take advantage, those who are dishonest, those from whom you must protect the resources you control so that the good people will have them. Thus rules are made, rules that grow over time to cover manifold individual situations. Rules that take up much time to bypass for those few who are exceptions. First one is slighted, for the good of all, after all we wouldn't be able to help 10 other's if we took the time to help that one. And so it goes. Leading ever downward to the stereotype called
BUREAUCRAT.
But back to the point of this post... It's not a perfect world. We do need protections from ourselves, not individually, but that we do as a group. I've always been amazed at how the intelligence of a mob (in all it's many forms) is defined by it's lower limits. But again I digress.
On the one hand our law enforcement agents need information in order to provide protection from those members of society that seek to harm other's.
On the other hand if that information is easily obtained, not bound by strict and ruthless controls and access then IT WILL BE ABUSED. It is the nature of power.
The US has had a good time of it, our constitution was well designed, with numerous limits and balances built in to check the natural growth of government power. These checks and balances weren't there by accident.
The founders were so wary of and understanding of the nature of government and power that their first attempt failed (Articles of Confederation) by being so weak on the federal level to be essentially useless. It was in fact so bad that when they gathered to fix it tossed it and started over.
That good time is coming to an end. Defeated by time and technologically aided abuses that are overwhelming the built in protections. Even though the founders built in methods for these protections to be updated and modified when necessary they weren't able to build in the will and resolve to do what's necessary.
I don't believe we should turn away from technology, and I do think it can be a tremendous help in combating crime. HOWEVER it should be used and applied with 80% of the resources applied to checks and balances. The smallest incursions on our rights should be met with the assumption that such will be misused unless rigorous controls and safeguards are implemented.
I'm not saying we can't trust those in power. I don't know them that well. I'm saying that if the power is there, then eventually someone we can't trust will be wielding it.
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .