The New Passports and Security
Biometric passports are supposedly harder to fake. Are they really more secure?
Jan 9, 2007
Like many people, I really like to travel. Seeing the world is more than a luxury, it's an important part of my life experiences. And, as everyone (probably) knows, the ease and luxury of travel is a little more difficult to attain with the new passport regulations.
Sometimes I think the TSA is horribly backwards and fear-mongering: Some of their decisions-by-hindsight are truly mind-boggling in their bureaucratic ineptitude. But these new passport regulations seem, initially, to be a pretty good idea. If a passport is needed to get to Italy, why not Mexico? Makes sense, at least on the face of it. And it may be a pain to get a passport if you’ve never had one before, but it’s really not that big a deal. This website can walk you through the process of passport procurement with minimal pain.
For any American who likes to travel out of the US, a passport is an unavoidable item in all of our travel bags. That’s why some privacy experts are concerned about the RFID chip to be embedded in all new passports. The RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip is a way to electronically check identity through biometric standards like face recognition, and fingerprint recognition…and futuristic methods like retina scans. This sounds like something out of Bladerunner (if you like sci-fi, the future has been here now for a while already, what with the embedded chips), but the fingerprints and retina scans are not used during in US biometric passports for security check procedures. Can you imagine? Those security checkpoint lines are long enough as it is! The facial digital image and personal info alone are stored on the RFID chip in passports. Again, the main purpose of the RFID chips is to try to prevent fake paper passports from seeming valid.
Here's the concern: Where there's a will to hack, there's a way to hack. The new biometric passports may seem like a good idea, since we'd all like to think our faces are unique, right? But the information in the RFID chips are not encrypted, and back in November '06 a couple of tech guys already hacked a biometric passport; it wasn't that hard for them either. The Guardian wrote about this, click here for details. As the hacker described in that article, "[This] could result in a new passport being passed off as the real article. You could make a perfect clone of the [original] passport." It hasn't happened yet, but it could - and a traveler wouldn't even know about it. After all, his passport isn't missing, or stolen. Also from the Guardian (same link): "citizens [by law must] adopt new ...documents which dramatically decrease their security and privacy and increase risk of identity theft." Oh, goodie.
But wait! Homeland Security, and the TSA, are here to protect us. I mean, they didn't confiscate that old lady's snow globe at LAX for nothing, right? If history tells us anything, it tells us that the TSA will work hard to change the way RFID chips are embedded in our passports...after something horrible almost happens. In the meantime, remember to wear clean socks to the airport. It wasn't the TSA that stopped the Shoe Bomber (it was his own stupidity), but darned if you can't get through security without taking off your sneakers now anyway.
And in the meantime, we all still need passports to fly, and soon to cruise and drive across US national boundaries. Wired Magazine offers one smashing solution for disabling the RFID chips in biometric passports, but I can't say I wholeheartedly recommend this method. It basically involves a hammer smashing your passport - disabling by breaking. But be warned: This aint legal. It will lead to a more (ahem) "in depth" security check. And watch out for that jail time. Hmm, jail time, or identity theft? That's a tough one. Neither one is even close to a luxury travel experience.
At this time, there is basically no way around it. People who love to enrich their lives via world travel, have to give up some of their privacy in the name of security. How this will play itself out in the end, is anybody's guess.
Related, on Suite 101:
Solid Shampoos for Airline Travel
TSA Sells Ad Space in Airports
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