Conferences… Travel… Passports…
The Australian ePassport has been introduced, with very little press attention. The centre page has an RFID chip which contains the same info as the regular passport.
To me, that’s actually big news. And very worrying.
While the “should you be required to identify yourself on the street” debate is still ongoing, this passport already goes a step further. Your identity could be read without asking you.
Sure, there are security features in place. For instance, the info from the machine-readable strip of the passport needs to be scanned to get the trigger sequence for the RFID. And the RFID info is of course encrypted.
But we know that this type of technology can be cracked. And since identity theft is a profitable endeavour, nasties are very likely to spend money on this.
Also, at locations where the passport is being read legally, others could (passively) pick up the transmitted signal. With a sufficiently large sample and the fact that the data format will be fairly fixed, the encryption actually becomes very vulnerable.
In short, I think this is going to be a privacy and identity nightmare.
References:
- The Australian ePassport
- Australia Launches ePassport – Media release by Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs, 25 October 2005
So long as I don’t lose my passport, then, I’ve 9.6 years before I’m edenitified!
Seriously – I didn’t hear anything about this coming? Is it just me, or does this stuff get very little coverage here?
its still worrying that people could at least recognize you by whatever encrypted data you send. but then again nobody really stops amazon, google and friends. overall people still do not understand that the data they hand people effectively gives people power over them. its the information age, stupid. so it goes ..
Unless there’s going to be an earlier replacement drive….
And coverage… I don’t think the media spotted the significance of this. It’s not something for a 30-second soundbite. Well it could be, by noting the “big brother” and “identity theft potential” effects. But that’s sensationalist scaremongering. Who knows. Perhaps it’ll still trigger something.