US Government To Release Electronic Passport

XueCast writes "The federal government has announced that they will release new electronic Passport cards in either April or May 2008. The cards could be read wirelessly from up to 20 feet away, which could reduce the waiting time at border checkpoints. Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State For Passport Services, Ann Barrett said, "As people are approaching a port of inspection, they can show the card to the reader, and by the time they get to the inspector, all the information will have been verified and they can be waved on through.""

Comments

No air travel?!

[s.bots]

$45 for an insecure card that can be read from 20 feet away and cannot be used for air travel? Thanks but no thanks, maybe when they have one permitted for air travel and with (at least) a method of enabling/disabling reading.

Re:No air travel?!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It makes a lot more sense if you think of it in terms of total number of trips and not total number of countries. ...
It takes 2-3 hours to get everyone off one of those big cruise ships because of the need to get 2000 people through customs at once. This sounds like it could speed that process up. About as helpful as a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.

The root cause of the problem isn't the number of people, i'ts the lame-ass system in the first place. It's a lot like DRM. People who want to enter the country for nefarious purposes will always have a variety of methods of entry that completely bypass these systems. But thosewho wish to enter legally have to jump through all the hoops. Essentially it punishes the law-abiding citizens and ignores the law breakers. Sure, the system will occasionally catch someone with a felony conviction in their home country who didn't know that would disqualify them from entry. But chances are, those people weren't up to no good, they were just on a trip like any other regular joe and denying them entry doesn't improve the situation at all.

Re:No air travel?!

[kabrakan]

Customs isn't mainly for crime, its for economics. At least at the canadian border, i see people held back all the time because they brought too many goods over and the receiving side wants to tax their stuff. The next thing they're worrying about is foreign food that could introduce diseases.

You're right that this is useless tech however. It takes about 4 seconds for a border officer to process your passport. The reason there are bottlenecks at ports of entry is because there tends to be a maximum of two border agents for every 50 people trying to cross.

Ummm.

[Idiot with a gun]

Every security measure I've seen for RFID involves some encryption, and a "Handshake" between the reader and card. In a packed situation like an airport, it would be really easy to have an electronic device sniff this handshake, and by pretending to be a reader, lift multiple passport ID's off of people while passing by. Sounds dangerous to me.

Re:Ummm.

[roystgnr]

You seem to have reached that awkward transitional stage where you're smarter than the government, but not yet smart enough to realize that yes, you really are smarter than the government.

Don't panic. The transition doesn't take very long, and when it's complete you'll be amazed to discover how much else starts making sense too.

Wonderful.

[FriendlyPrimate]

Oh wonderful. Now when I'm overseas, the terrorists can identify me as an American in a crowd from 20 feet away.

Re:Wonderful.

[Anonymous Coward]

you dont need rfid to identify American Tourists abroad, they are pretty obvious anyway.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

"Funny. You're the seventh Jack Bauer through here today. Oh well, the computer says you're OK, so go on in."

Re:Awesome

[ozmanjusri]

What's really cool is that now terrorists can rig bombs that only kill people carrying American passports.

It's not just about Americans.

Australians have had to use RFID-embedded passports for the past couple of years to comply with US regulations. Can't say it's sped up my travels at all.