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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.
Be VERY RFID
How about a tatoo on the forehead? Or will that diminish tourism?
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Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
RFID in plates could help catch stolen vechiles... Right now if your car get stolen you can file a report and that will be the end of the story (that what happend with me at least)
Visit my site @ http://www.madtorrent.com
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.
Yeah maybe, but do you know how much it's gonna cost to keep my entire car wrapped in tinfoil?! :o)
my geeklog
Then again, I also believe that the government shouldn't be allowed to keep any information on an otherwise-law-abiding person whatsoever beyond that used in exchanges with that individual. This means that I personally would want them to have a file for my voter registration, my tax history, notation of the presence of a driver's license, notation of ownership of land if any, and notation of things like social security, medicare, or any other non-standard service that is used by the person. Beyond that, nothing else that I do is any of their business at all.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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
Universal
Frequency
Identification
Access.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
> 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.
What's preventing people from storing their tickets and passports at locked storage boxes at airport?
That way they have complete freedom to roam around the country without being followed, the database doesn't even show them ever leaving the airport if the reader is at the front exit.
Or is there some limiting law that visitor must have his/her visa with him/her all times when moving outdoors that I missed?
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
What's more worrysome is, people seem to have forgotten that most of the 9/11 terrorists had valid passports. With this new measure in place, they'd have valid RFID-enabled passport and a chance to pass security faster, so they're a little less jet-lagged when they arrive at the hotel.
I'm really beginning to wonder why nobody points out the fact that all these security measures just aren't any use to catch determined terrorists. My personal conviction is that companies who market those "anti-terrorism" devices are making a fat buck out of the whole deal, and they share the proceeds with the politicians who approve of these things. It disgusts me more and more each time I look at it...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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?
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.
The war on terrorism isn't about catching terrorists, or preventing attacks. The war on terrorism is simply about stripping people of their rights, and keeping them from noticing how corrupt their government gotten.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
One that really interested me was where a handgun would only fire if the user was wearing a ring on their finger.
I agree, there ARE good uses for RFID. I do not believe, however, that those uses involve placing personal information out and available for the first person that breaks the encryption.
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
As I understand it, most RFID tags have a very limited range. If it was small enough, I'm wondering if you could have an officer's gun respond only when fired by a person wearing a RFID enabling ring or wristband. I say this because out of the majority of police officers who die each year in the line of duty, most are killed with their own weapons.
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...]
Why not go the extra mile and put RFID tags on cops, judges, politicians, doctors, bankers, pharmacists, etc.
Then publish their whereabouts on a googlized map system. Now when you need a doctor or a cop, you know where to go. When there's an accusation of corruption or impropriety, you can check the map logs and see if Congressman Joe "show me the money" Smith was visiting the local corporate ganstas. I think this idea has merits.
"In my opinion, it should take some real effort to track vehicles."
Uh...why? I mean, when your car gets stolen, why do you feel the police should have to take some "real effort" to find it for you. If your daughter is kidnapped by some sicko and they know the plate number of his van (why is it that they all own vans?), why should it take them "real effort" to save her life? For that matter, why should you really care if the local cops know you went through the red light in front of Albertson's at 10:37pm if you aren't doing anything wrong?
Also, guess what? I'd bet my next paycheck that you can't name a single "bureaucrat" that personally gives a damn about knowing where you are at 2am. Now, on the other hand, I'm sure you can find plenty who are currently being begged and pleaded by overworked police forces in their districts who are trying to cope with rashes of stolen vehicles, missing persons, and wanted criminals.
Besides, there are several HUNDRED MILLION cars on the road and no one is going to randomly just decide to find out where your car was unless they had a reason to look for it. It's not like cops just sit around trying to dream up ways to mess with the American people. In case you haven't noticed, they're American people too.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
In my case, you're quite likely correct that nobody that would have access to these tools would care about tracking me, personally, throughout my day. But do consider the possibility of a small town or two where the local enforcement occasionally finds itself poking in everybody's business, perhaps sweeping parking lots of bars where "odd" people hang out or looking for out-of-towners to ticket.
And then even figuring I'm a pretty uninteresting individual, take into account that protestors and politicians aren't. If this gets integrated in any way with traffic cameras or toll booths or they decide to toss routine scans from a cruiser into a log, the information could be used to quash dissent or held over our representatives to steer their decisions. Who knows how long this information is retained for, either? Ten years down the road you might run for office only to have logs of your vehicle regularly parked outside a porn shop turn up in the paper from an anonymous source.
What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't have to directly affect us to affect us. It's a threat, albeit one still waiting for implementation to demonstrate how benign or dangerous it is to our privacy. It also seems redundant in light of license plates, except for the fact that it would make casual electronic scans of masses of vehicles much easier than visually inspecting each plate.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Even more interestingly, they seem pretty content with that fact. The fact that they're an unarmed populace with an armed (and dangerous!) government seems to please them greatly. The cameras and microphones in public places seem to get constant praise, or at least little outraged criticism (at least here on Slashdot). Some of the biggest gripes I heard in a previous article about the governor chips in cars in lieu of congestion fees were about how they weren't related (speeding in a congestion zone?).
What gives? When the US gets to the level of government involvement that England is currently experiencing, will we be happy with it, too?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
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! .
The Department of Homeland Security has a Privacy Assessment of this program. Guess what? It has no privacy implications.
- The information can only be shared with "...other agencies at the federal, state, local, foreign, or tribal level, who are lawfully engaged in collecting law enforcement information (whether civil or criminal) and national security intelligence information and/or who are investigating, prosecuting, enforcing, or implementing civil and/or criminal laws, related rules, regulations, or orders." "The Privacy Act SORNs for the systems on which US-VISIT draws provide notice as to the conditions of disclosure and routine uses for the information collected by US-VISIT. Any disclosure by DHS must be compatible with the purpose for which the information was collected."
- The tag only contains an unencrypted number, and only the very limited number of groups above would have access to the information.
- The tag can't be used to ID someone as a visitor because the DHS has contemplated this problem. Thus problem solved... "it is contemplated that the unencrypted RFID tag number will not be structured in such a way that it can be used to identify the individual as a non-immigrant."(pg 15)How exactly? Will everyone soon be carrying an RFID, so the visitor won't stand out?
- And of course it can't be used for surveillance, as "There is also a low risk that the RFID tag could be used to conduct surreptitious locational surveillance of an individual; i.e., to use the presence of the tag to follow an individual as he or she moves about in the U.S. However, ensuring that RFID tag numbers do not exhibit properties that can be readily attributed to US-VISIT and using a limited radio frequency range effectively mitigates this risk. The design process is also taking into account methods of reducing eavesdropping and skimming possibilities." (pg 15). Reducing the "possibilities" by sticking their fingers into their ears and singing "La la la" each time a new tech groups shows them ever longer read ranges.
- And most importantly it doesn't affect US Citizens, because the document doesn't mention them. Never mind that every traveler in the car must be identified in order to separate the residents and citizens from visitors (by definition). They'll now know who you're associating with as you travel.
As I said last time...I'm now going to "contemplate" that being asked for "your papers, please" and being tracked every time I enter and leave my country, that there is no more "If" in "If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free." doesn't change our rights (4th Amendment anyone? it says "Persons") in the US. Whooohoo, I'm ever so much safer! [btw, that's one of the best essays on why privacy is a necessary and fundamental right in a free society. He warns Canadians not to give up what the U.S. has already lost. Worth reading.]