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New York Issues RFID-Encoded Drivers Licenses
JagsLive passes along the intelligence that New York has become the second state to issue drivers licenses with RFID tags (Washington was the first). The new "enhanced drivers licenses" cost $30 more than the old ones. They can be used instead of a passport for entry into the US by land or sea (not air) from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Authorities say no personal information will be stored or transmitted by the chip, only an ID number that will be meaningless to anyone but DHS. Citizens of New York who prefer not to carry an identifying RFID chip can still get an old-style license.
Reminds me of how several years ago blackberries used to be "optional" for associates at my law firm, and there was even a waitlist. That is until partners realized just how effective they were at keeping tabs on exactly where we were and what we were doing at all hours. Now they come standard issue with your welcome packet. Expect the same for new drivers pretty soon.
What are the legalities of defacing the ID by removing the chip?
What a waste then.
Why not just get a regular drivers license and a passport as two different pieces of identity.
Minor nitpick: States are not sovereign entities, so people who reside in them are residents, not citizens.
Meaningless to anyone but DHS until some nitwit with an unencrypted drive on their laptop leaves it in an airport lounge.
This is just monumentally stupid. Seriously. A monument is required to commemorate this epically stupid idea. I'm thinking a huge statue of a DHS lacky shrugging their shoulders. Preferably with an Alfred E. Neumann "What Me Worried?" look on their mug.
Thanks but no thanks. A simple ID number is enough to be tracked or have my identity stolen, and having one that can be read remotely is not an option. Knowing the DHS is involved it won't actually work and will be a joke on security issues, too.
If I ever get a new ID card I think I'll toss it in the microwave the day I get it.
=Smidge=
A Social Security number is "meaningless". It's just an identifier. But it's a number that uniquely identifies you, and if other people get their hands on it, or are able to spoof it, then than meaningless number can have adverse effects on your life.
How is this "meaningless" identifier any different?
Citizens of New York who prefer not to carry an identifying RFID chip can still get an old-style license.
See, calm down, nothing to see here. Move along.
/sarcasm
--
finding my ip address
Then others can read it and track/follow what you do so not entirely "meaningless".
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
All someone needs to do is correlate your ID# with you (easy enough to do on many occasions). Once you have that, its no longer a meaningless ID number, but a unique personal tracking number.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Brings to mind the Anaconda Plan.
What's the consequence of getting the RFID one and just microwaving it?
Citizens of New York who prefer not to carry an identifying RFID chip can still get an old-style license.
And those who refuse will go right on the master list under "troublemaker/refusnik/something to hide/potential terrorist."
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
"Citizens of New York who prefer not to carry an identifying RFID chip can still get an old-style license."
Wait a second here.. the RFID licenses are $30 more expensive than regular licenses, yet the residents have the option to get the cheaper RFID-free license? Who's going to choose to willingly pay more to be tracked more effectively?
Let me guess. The state isn't telling them that they can choose to get the cheaper older style of license? Brilliant!
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
I applied for a new passport this Summer, and it sounds like the new New York DL just includes a "Passport Card" in it. They're both for surface entry of the US from North American and Caribbean countries. The additional DL fee is $30, but a new Passport Card is $45, $20 if you already have a passport book. As such, privacy concerns would be exactly the same as with a new Passport or Passport Card.
I am not a crackpot.
1. All the talk about "tracking" is nonsense. An RFID anything has a range measured in inches normally. Stuff it in your wallet sandwiched in between more cards and it pretty much won't work.
2. $30 is about right after all is said and done. No one is getting rich making these cards. There's secure printing, personalization, etc.
3. What's the application though? If it is just border crossings, then do border crossings have the infrastructure to process a contactless card?
4. Accidentally leaving the card inside a microwave oven while you are warming coffee would harm the chip, so don't ever do that.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
How many people come into the US by sea? I don't think it's really worth an extra $30 for the ability to visit Canada and Mexico without a passport, especially as most people will have passports anyway.
Obviously the conspiracy theorists will be all over this... I don't care much, being a Brit, although we have similar controversy over identity cards here. Personally it doesn't bother me as I'm not a criminal/am never likely to be a criminal/don't plan on doing anything worthy of attention by the government in my life, so it's never going to affect me. I think too many people have read Nineteen Eighty Four and think any attempt to make things a little more organised is an attempt to take away their civil liberties.
If your kids are going to college near the Canadian border, and they insist on paying for an "enhanced driver's license", you know they will be taking trips to Canada to go drinking. I can only imagine some money was shipped over from Canada to pay off legislators to approve this. Obviously there is no other reason to go to Canada, and who would fly over to go drinking anyway?
I live in Upstate New York and cross by land into Canada at least 2-3 times annually. I would much prefer to not have to worry about my passport for those crossings, and this fits that need for me. Regular license + $30 is still quite a bit less than what I paid for my passport (or what I would pay for a replacement if I were to loose it).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
So if the card has just and ID on it, that means that there is a database somewhere that contains all of your personal info, not a big shocker. But the ID is usable at every land/sea boarder access point in the US. So given nothing more than a series of numbers, a boarder patrol employee at one of those locations could pull up data on anyone at any time, with out a warrant.
Call me paranoid, but I'm not a big fan of the government having better records of my life than I do. I'm even less of a fan of that information being widely available through out the government. And last but definitely not least, I and not a fan of trusting that information in the hands of each and every single government employee.
So my question is, does this actually make me any more safe? Or is it just another example of wasteful spending, erosion of civil liberties, and a theater of defense?
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Considering how easy RFIDs are to fake and how much they want to automate authentication the technology will be easier to bypass than the old fashioned 3D hologram was.
People assume that just because its new then no bad guy will be able to figure it out... And that worked on Police Radios for like ten years before all the bad guys had scanners.
Security though obscurity at its worst. My 2c.
[The several states] yield only a portion of their sovereignty to the Federal government to keep the British at bay.
"Portion" went out the window with the Supreme Court's expansion of the scope of "commerce among the several states" in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942).
the residents have the option to get the cheaper RFID-free license? Who's going to choose to willingly pay more
Many people forget how many cities in Upstate New York are close to the border. I cross the border on average 2-3 times per year by car myself. Currently I have to carry my passport to get back in - if I could go back to just carrying my driver's license, I would be much happier. Loosing a driver's license is a pretty minor expense in comparison to loosing a passport - and driver's licenses are generally replaced quite quickly here in NY state.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Worrying about the tracking boogeyman is ridiculous.
I'm not sure why you labor under the illusion that your activities aren't tracked now. Most of your activity is in one way or another and then packaged and sold to any willing buyer including Government entities.
Credit Score? Tracking
Medical Records? This is a murky area, but I'm sure the U.S. health insurance co's would love to trade patient health scores. No. HIPPAA didn't outlaw this.
Communication? Done. FISA, Telcos, NSA, Etc.
Debit transations? Tracking.
Other finance tracking? Done. It's called taxes.
There's lots of worthy things to contribute your personal energy to. This isn't one of them.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
are they paying you 24/7 at mini wage of better for that?
to Amerika
A unique way to learn a language: http://languageloom.com
Loosing a driver's license is a pretty minor expense in comparison to loosing a passport - and driver's licenses are generally replaced quite quickly here in NY state.
It's true! Loose passports sink ships. Or something like that. So remember to tighten your passports, folks!
It sounds to me like it stores a primary key which corresponds to a database entry on you, rather than storing your personal information. If this is the case, I don't see the huge deal.
A driver's license is used because it meets the requirement for government-issued photo-identification. You can also use a state-issued ID card any time you would use a driver's license EXCEPT for driving. It just so happens that most adults want to be licensed to drive, so if they need a driver's license anyway, there's not much point in ALSO having a state ID card.**
You can NOT use your pet owner's license card or your hunting license card (depending on the state and purpose, your hunting license might be acceptable) because they generally do not require as rigorous a verification of identity as a state ID or driver's license.
** Although I used to have a state ID card AND a state driver's license when I was younger and lived in IL so that I could still get in the bar when they cops took my license as bond for the speeding tickets. (Fortunately I've lost my youthful good looks*** and my lead foot and neither is an issue anymore.)
*** Ok, fine, the looks were never good, but they were at least youthful.
paintball
SELECT ssn FROM dhs.us_public WHERE dl_rfid='123456';
Not to be concerned I am sure nobody will ever be able to access that data.
Got Code?
Until I heard about this company
Before you click, be forwarned they have a live demo on their homepage which estimates your longitude and latitude based on your IP address...
Just wait until they get one of these databases going for RFID tags...
I just got a passport and it contains a warning that it is a sensitive electronic device and as such do not bend or expose to moisture or extreme temperatures. So I assume there is already an RFID chip in new passports as well.
Same here. My girlfriend is from Buffalo and when going to visit her family we often go over to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. (The view is much better and as a result all the nice hotels and bars/clubs are on the Canadian side, while the United States side is an industrial ghetto for the most part.)
I'm going to be getting an EDL as soon as I can. 15 minutes for the application down the road from me plus typical DMV mailorder time (2-3 weeks) is better than the royal pain in the ass of ordering a passport and waiting 6-8+ weeks for it to arrive. Plus the passport is easier to lose (doesn't fit in wallet, isn't normally carried with me).
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
"Popcorn 1" on the ol' nuker ought to take care of that
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Until somebody gets the string of bytes from his own card and figures out that f( his_ssn ) = stream_of_bytes, tries it on a few friends' cards for verification, and then figures out an inverse function.
Again, you assume you know how this works and rely on Minority Report/V for Vendetta moviethink. When the reality is so completely different I won't bother wasting any more time on it.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
i doubt there are very many people living in new york who travel frequently by land or sea to mexico...
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
"Unless you just want to waste $30 to get an RFID chip that contains nothing but an ID number."
If it is good enough for DHS, then it should be good enough for air travel into the US, too, since it's good for ground transportation. Personally, if this is easier and cheaper than getting a passport, and *almost* as good, then the State Department/et al should go a step further and allow it to speedily replace or be equivalent TO the US passport. It should, however, infer RESIDENCE, not citizenship (since disclosure of citizenship could get one killed).
By knocking 'citizenship' off of the spec, then traveling students who abide by the terms of their visas could travel home more easily on their school holidays. Since EVERYTHING is subject to tampering, why not code these for anyone who properly applies and enrolls or lives in an approved condition/status.
Hell, for that matter, assign them to immigrant aliens or even illegal aliens who are seasonal workers. This would allow better statistics tracking to get a more sane handle on who is doing the back-breaking, thankless-task work "ordinary merkuns" would never "stoop" to do.
Countries need to get the hell out of the business of "citizenship" and get more into population distribution/new cities development management. For that matter, not to say "China", but the US needs to start spending some of that $10/month-alone-in-Iraq" money on fixing shitty US infrastructure, and razing old cities the way Mother Nature just pretty much RAZED Galveston.
[I used to live there, and when I revisited in Feb 08 it was no less anxiety-inducing, raggedy, and decrepit as it was when I left in 1982. Oh, there ARE new buildings, but the older era crap still there hurt my stomach, made me dizzy, and i was all too happy to not have to be there more than a couple of days. The tired-ass excuse "Well, that's the way it's always been" (hinting, leave it raggedy as it is; don't spend tourist/oil dollars for poor-ass people who won't appreciate it anyway?)]
I'm sick of hearing erudite/educated/trusted people talk about how expensive it would be to deprive existing cities of growth. Instead of Denver or Phoenix further expanding, just make new-model cities with all-new or updated code, free of the rife corruption and bullshit associated with existing cities. Too many existing cities have worn-out infrastructure, pockets of crime and poverty, and need to be razed, by Nature or by other means. There is too much wealth existing in the US for these blight, eye-sore, vomitous-inducing cities to persist like cankers on an eyeball.
Now, back to RFID, RFID could do all sorts of things, like help transit systems route vehicles (rail and non-rail) so that more efficient movement of passengers can be realized. I ride THREE transit systems (MUNI, BART, and AC Transit) to work. Muni is $45 a month for my adult fast pass. BART is pay by the ride, and costs me about $3.65 each way. AC is (for me) pay by the day and costs $1.50 each way, so when I'm close to broke, i walk on my evening leg home for 30 minutes to save $1.50.
When I ride in, I'm almost perpetually missing one 30-minute-periodicity bus by 2 minutes. Or, I arrive some 10-15 early. It's not convenient to use the more frequent buses because I end up having to walk 5 minutes and prefer to arrive at my desk almost as fresh as when I left the shower. In the evening i don't care, though. Now, with RFID, riders could plug the thing into a data port at the transit planning center web site, or at a kiosk, or if technology and sheer non-partisan will power could rise over stupidity and turf battles, a person on a bus could get near or plug in their card, tap a screen and adjust their route.
With lots of people *responsibly* using the system, then merely entering the reading range and tapping a wall board or console to confirm "Standard Daily Preferences" would alert the system to adjust the arrival, speed, and number of cars in a given train, and give priority to certain trains or lone (automated) train cars t
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Every car key has an RFID chip. Nobody is making a fuss about that so why worry about RFID chips in your drivers license?
I'd think that they would charge $30 dollars more for the one without RFID in it. That you have an excuse to raise the standard fee this thing costs to generate more income...
Is this a new program or is it tied into NEXUS?
I don't have enough data to tell how much information is encoded on NEXUS cards but I do have enough to tell me there is some encoding.
So in the one instance where you *clearly* are not planning to drink and drive, you can't buy the liquor? Kafka lives on!
1. All the talk about "tracking" is nonsense. An RFID anything has a range measured in inches normally. Stuff it in your wallet sandwiched in between more cards and it pretty much won't work.
Until the next technology comes along -- then you can be tracked with all the range they want. But by then it will be too late to argue about it and you would just look like one those "tinfoil hat" types or a "conspiracy kook" if you questioned it. All Americans want to be tracked to help their government fight "terrorism", don't they?
3. What's the application though? If it is just border crossings, then do border crossings have the infrastructure to process a contactless card?
The application is -- you guessed it -- remote tracking. The newest U.S. Passports as of July of this year all have RFID chips in them as well. It's not perfect, but yet another baby step on the way to "total information awareness" on citizens, just like the East Germans had but without all the fancy technology. It's a pilot program, testing the waters regarding citizen resistance, and inching it into general acceptance. There was a huge revolt against the REAL ID program, so think of this as a "reboot" of that program.
4. Accidentally leaving the card inside a microwave oven while you are warming coffee would harm the chip, so don't ever do that.
That's right. As soon as they get enough of these things in circulation, you will need them to get on airlines, go in government buildings, or maybe pass "illegal immigrant checkpoints". If your RFID chip was disabled, that might mean that you are an illegal immigrant, or a terrorist, or that you just like standing in long lines and being searched thoroughly.
The REAL ID program would have gone into effect on May 11 of this year, except that it was such a tremendous threat against the rights of our citizens that many states openly revolted against it. The REAL ID was an "enhanced drivers license" and you would have needed it to get on airplanes or enter government buildings nationwide by now. The Department of Homeland Security had a deadline of May 13 of this year, and yes, they were planning to put an RFID chip in the REAL ID card as well. Google it -- it's everything that you are arguing that this identical program is not, and it was a planned nationwide program before it got derailed.
If you haven't been paying attention, the INS has already admitted they track exits and entries of US citizens with RFID passports and drivers licenses.
They don't store them locally, they store them in a nationalized database.
Get ready to get in bread lines and present travel papers to go from city to city next, as we move closer and closer to Soviet Russia under Bush/McCain.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
.
The next time you cross the Peace Bridge into Buffalo let us know.
Personally, I suspect the friendly folks working border security will want to have a little chat with you --- while your car is being stripped down to its last rivet.
Microwave on high for 30 seconds.
Not so quick or easy but less likely to have unintended consequences is having the card inside an operating MRI for a few minutes.
If it were simply a matter of a number, the DHS could use an existing one, such as the DL number itself. Although technically illegal, or at least improper, much of the US government use social security numbers, another option (for non-residents there's green card or visa number). The availability of options supports the assertion that there's more to it, if not now then at least in possibility or planning, than simply reading a number.
It should be a relatively simple matter to force the DMV to disclose with availability for verification just what information is sent to DHS in trade for the number. If there's a 1 to 1 correspondence with an existing ID method (DL number, etc.) then there's a good chance the DHS program isn't intended to remain at the simple individual ID number level.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
've use my mastercard with RFID chip at the local supermarket. It's really NO more convenient than the magstripe...
My credit card issuer tried RFID chips but dropped them, I guess they didn't see any need for them that made them worthwhile.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
If it is good enough for DHS, then it should be good enough for air travel into the US, too, since it's good for ground transportation.
Ah, TFA says it "not for international air travel." Then again, it's understandable as passports are still needed to enter most other nations legally.
By knocking 'citizenship' off of the spec, then traveling students who abide by the terms of their visas could travel home more easily on their school holidays.
There's no reason for an international student to have one, they already have their passport. All they need. if they want to drive is a driver's license.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
If the card can be read without my permission, it will be. They try it now, even though it has no RFID. All it takes is cross-referencing the number to be very dangerous.
I "accidentally" damaged the barcode on my licence AND one of two digits of the printed number on the front. And for this exact reason. I will give you one of MANY real-world (actually happened to me) examples why:
I tried to return a shirt to a store s: store m: me
s: We will be glad to offer you an exchange or refund. We need to see your ID.
m: Here is my driver's license to prove I am who I say I am.
s: (looks at license and IMMEDIATELY starts keying my number into the register)
s: Oh, your number is damaged, could you please tell me the missing digits.
m: Sorry, but you need to verify who I am. I didn't give you permission to record my number into a computer.
s: But we have to have it to prove we saw your ID.
m: Um, having the number doesn't really prove anything.
s: But we have to have the number.
m: No you don't- you have to know I am who I say I am, now you know. My name matches the receipt. You do not need to record my DRIVER'S LICENSE number to return a shirt at a retail store.
s: But the license is invalid.
m: No it isn't. You can see the picture. The watermark is intact. My name and address are on the card. It is not expired. I paid money for it. I passed the required tests. I assure you, it is authentic.
s: But what if you get pulled over by the police?
m: Then I will happily tell them the number. If I refused, it would be no different than if I didn't produce my license at all. If I lied (which I would not do), they would know immediately, also.
s: Well, it is our policy, so I can't offer you a refund or exchange without the number.
Get the idea? And what happens when your "ID" is used to get into a club? Or buy alcohol or whatever? They have need to verify my age, not record my identity in some computer that can then be searched, stolen, cross-referenced, whatever. With RFID, the problem is even worse- your info could be recorded into a database without even knowing it. You will have NO control over what is done with the information or how long it is retained.
The only way to protect your privacy is ACTIVELY, it cannot be done by trusting others will do the right thing. Privacy has nothing to do with "if you have nothing to hide" and everything to do with "what MIGHT you lose".
Cause it's America. How did you get wherever you are to show your ID if not by car?
More than half of the US population now live in cities where cars aren't needed so much. In places like New York and Chicago it can actually be faster to take mass transit than drive. And there are delivery services to deliver food and what not.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The most interesting quote here "Authorities say no personal information will be stored or transmitted by the chip, only an ID number that will be meaningless to anyone but DHS."
That ID number can be cloned unless you have Verayo Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF) which still have to be proven in the real world:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/08/1710237
My real worry about any RFID is cloning and spoofing since now I can be anyone without having someone check who I really am.
Meanwhile, you can clone James J. Bulger's ID:
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted.htm
I live in Upstate New York and cross by land into Canada at least 2-3 times annually. I would much prefer to not have to worry about my passport for those crossings, and this fits that need for me
But will Canada accept it? Last I heard Canada is now requiring passports.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The illegal immigration law prohibits the use of state driver's licenses after Oct. 1, 2000 unless they contain Social Security numbers as the unique numeric identifier "that can be read visually or by electronic means."
Ah, the key "or by electronic means". Last month I renewed my driver's license and I just checked it. If my SSN is on it it isn't visibly. And I don't recall giving it to them when I renewed.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Last I heard Canada is now requiring passports.
Unless they changed that requirement in the past two months, no, they don't require passports for land crossings.
The passport requirement for the US-Canada land crossing is only to get back into the US. The requirements for American entry into Canada by land state that you can enter Canada without a passport, provided you have the required documentation (a driver's license along with a birth certificate will meet that).
I'm afraid you've heard wrong, or you heard the requirements for air or sea entry, which could be different. However, here in upstate New York, it is common to cross into Canada by land, which is how all of my crossings have been into Canada for the past several years.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It so happens that I live in Washington (state), and this is the very FIRST I have heard about Washington state issuing RFID driver's licenses. If they are doing so, they are doing it under the cover of a huge amount of secrecy.
I looked into this further. Washington is indeed issuing "enhanced information" licenses... but that information is printed in a pixel code on the back of the card. It is NOT RFID!!!
1. All the talk about "tracking" is nonsense. An RFID anything has a range measured in inches normally. Stuff it in your wallet sandwiched in between more cards and it pretty much won't work.
Until the next technology comes along -- then you can be tracked with all the range they want. But by then it will be too late to argue about it and you would just look like one those "tinfoil hat" types or a "conspiracy kook" if you questioned it. All Americans want to be tracked to help their government fight "terrorism", don't they?
There are limits on the signal to noise ratio and distance, and you can greatly reduce the readability with a commercially available sleeve. Or a piece of tinfoil. Like the kind you currently use for your hats ;). They can keep adding more and more expensive and sensitive technology, you just need to keep adding sheets of aluminum foil to your shield. It would be the stupidest arms race ever.
3. What's the application though? If it is just border crossings, then do border crossings have the infrastructure to process a contactless card?
The application is -- you guessed it -- remote tracking. The newest U.S. Passports as of July of this year all have RFID chips in them as well. It's not perfect, but yet another baby step on the way to "total information awareness" on citizens, just like the East Germans had but without all the fancy technology. It's a pilot program, testing the waters regarding citizen resistance, and inching it into general acceptance. There was a huge revolt against the REAL ID program, so think of this as a "reboot" of that program.
The passports are including a chip so that we can retain our visa-waiver status with European countries. They don't trust paper travel documents anymore, and they require anyone traveling there to either have a secure Schengen visa or a document from your home country that they think is secure enough. If you ever get concerned about the "remote tracking," wrap more layers of aluminum foil around your passport and ID.
4. Accidentally leaving the card inside a microwave oven while you are warming coffee would harm the chip, so don't ever do that.
That's right. As soon as they get enough of these things in circulation, you will need them to get on airlines, go in government buildings, or maybe pass "illegal immigrant checkpoints". If your RFID chip was disabled, that might mean that you are an illegal immigrant, or a terrorist, or that you just like standing in long lines and being searched thoroughly.
The REAL ID program would have gone into effect on May 11 of this year, except that it was such a tremendous threat against the rights of our citizens that many states openly revolted against it. The REAL ID was an "enhanced drivers license" and you would have needed it to get on airplanes or enter government buildings nationwide by now. The Department of Homeland Security had a deadline of May 13 of this year, and yes, they were planning to put an RFID chip in the REAL ID card as well. Google it -- it's everything that you are arguing that this identical program is not, and it was a planned nationwide program before it got derailed.
I have no problem with a secure document that proves my identity, as long as I can shield it when not in active use. If I don't trust the shielding that the government provides, I can use my own. I have no problem with biometric authentication on the document, as long as the enrollment data is a token on the card and not in a central government database. Both of those are covered in the new passports, so I don't have a problem with it.
Where I do have a problem is that the breeder documents AREN'T as secure. We can't trust biometri
I don't understand why it has to be RFID though. Wouldn't a barcode or a printed number on the card essentailly do the same job? I can't imagine that you'd be allowed to just wave your card in the air as you amble through passport control, it'll be checked by a human at least.
Amigos,
No worries, we can copy these. Why risk a crossing by foot, when dumb amigos let you walk in.
Press Release: http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/press/EDL%20PRESS%20RELEASE.pdf
Official EDL (Enhanced Driver License) web page: http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/edl-main.htm
Neither of which mention anything about being able to choose the non-RFID license. But on the other side of the coin, they don't say that the RFID license is mandatory.
Earlier this year I renewed my passport book and also requested a passport card. The book has a shielded cover so it can't be read when closed, and the card came with a foil envelope that effectively shields the RFID chip from being read. I wonder if the NY and WA licenses come with something similar.
I'll get one, if it means I get a better photo.
My current NY license has a picture of someone who looks like me, but who was smashed under a falling piano, re-inflated with a gas station airhose, and then embalmed by a first-year mortician.
I'd give up a little privacy to not have to hand that photo over every time I enter a bar or a tall building. Oh well, at least I've still got a sense of irony.
As far as I know, they pushed back the deadline for requiring a passport to enter the US from the Canadian border (I live within 45 minutes of the border, and pass through the Champlain border a few times a year).
The last time I came through, I had gone up to Montreal to see Radiohead, sometime in July. Coming back, the border guard asked to see our passports, and we responded that we didn't think it was currently required in order to gain entry in the states (none of us had one, only drivers licenses). The guard sarcastically responded, "Oh, well, maybe you've heard of this thing, its called 9/11." He then handed us a pamphlet detailing the border regulations, and questioned us for about 5 minutes before letting us past.
So, we were able to get back in sans passports, without too much difficulty. Funny thing is, I was reading the pamphlet as we were driving down the interstate back home, and it didn't say anything about a passport being required.
He then handed us a pamphlet detailing the border regulations
Was it the same as this file from the cbp?
Changes in sea and land travel documentation requirements
Though that document claims effective January 21, 2008 - so it may even be an inconsistency within the DHS. (a government agency inconsistency? who's ever heard of such a thing?)
last time I came through, I had gone up to Montreal to see Radiohead, sometime in July
I was in Toronto in mid-late July, and came back through Niagara Falls. I had my passport, and was asked for it specifically. I honestly didn't even ask if there was any other way. Though that document does seem to indicate that you could get through with a driver's license and a birth certificate, which is how it used to be (sometimes just one or the other would do back in the good old days).
the pamphlet ... didn't say anything about a passport being required
Maybe it was a different pamphlet, then. This one does list a passport as being one option. It is one of very few documents you can use on its own to get through - most other documents listed require something else (with the enhanced driver's license being a notable exception).
At any rate, it sounds like we both cross often from NY to Canada. I prefer not to take too many chance with US CBP - and I see the new license as a win in my situation, since I could use that and not worry about my passport. Of course, YMMV.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I'm afraid you've heard wrong, or you heard the requirements for air or sea entry, which could be different. However, here in upstate New York, it is common to cross into Canada by land, which is how all of my crossings have been into Canada for the past several years.
Maybe I did hear wrong, perhaps some of those I heard it from thought it was flying. Thing is is some I heard it from were from Seattle driving into BC. Maybe where you cross the border determines whether a passport is needed. I don't know, I haven't been to Canada since the month before 911.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
1) This thing's useless as a passport. When I travelled to Morocco, the police wanted to see a passport, you left your passport at the hotel, it was stamped, etc. Believe me, none of these guys had a RFID reader, and you would have gotten a "WTF" if you handed them your driver's license. Oh wait, it's good for like 3 countries, and not by air. *Rolls eyes*
2) A regular passport's like $80 (if you pay cash there's some $5 or $10 wire transfer fee tacked on though), I went to the post office, waited about a minute. I needed my driver's license and I think one additional form of ID. I'd rather the hassle-free passport than all that.