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Washington State To Try RFID Drivers Licenses
tverbeek tells us about a program the state of Washington has approved, to issue RFID-equipped drivers licenses to facilitate cross-border traffic. The idea is to load the drivers license with information proving citizenship, so that (with Department of Homeland Security approval) the bearer doesn't need to carry a passport — which otherwise will be required to re-enter the US from Canada beginning in 2009. The "enhanced" licenses will require applicants to submit to an in-person interview and to show proof of citizenship. A pilot program in Washington begins January 2008. Officials hope for DHS approval of the program before the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 causes a spike in cross-border traffic.
I don't know whether you're brain-damaged naive, or just another selfish asshole who doesn't care that people would suffer, as long as it means he can do whatever the hell he wants. Those are the only kinds of people I've ever met who seriously advocate anarchy.
They say that communism is a great theory that sucks in practice... but compared to anarchy, it's downright pragmatic.
Barcodes are essentially too small to track individual people. The fields that make up a barcode are limited in the amount of information they can carry. You can tell a bar of soap apart from a 6-pack of Cokes using a barcode, but you couldn't tell one bar of Dove soap from another. When you start talking about tracking people, you simply run out of unique identifiers... With RFID you have plenty of tracking capability (in terms of available numbers), easily tracking more people than are currently alive on the planet.
As far as security goes... don't pay attention to the tin-foil hat crowd. The type RFID they would use on a passport/drivers license will have a strong (probably 128 bit) encription engine on the tag. Any concerns of reading an RFID tag from a distance (and becoming a target etc.) are easily engineered around. It's not difficult to limit read distance to a few centimeters if desired (and a simple piece of foil wrapped around the license would make it unreadable by anyone.)