RFID Passports Make a Lot of Sense
By Lance Winslow

Soon Passports maybe a little harder to forge and contain much better information as the authorities are looking into RFID Radio Frequency Identification enabled passports to insure we know who is coming and going. The State Department is going to roll-out this concept on a prototype basis for government officials and employees first to see how it goes and if all goes well are wishing to have it set up for all citizens by Next year this time.

This should help secure our borders and let us know who is in our country and it will make airline travel safer and speed up the long lines too. The reader will be able to read the passport with a quick swipe of about 5 inches away or less and it will be read only like a CD ROM and only be able to be read by an official machine. It will have anti-skimming material so no one can illegally read it by walking by; unless it is open, even if they do figure out how to make a machine to read them.

Every RFID Passport will have unique chip number. Some privacy right activists are a little concerned but the chips cannot be used to track individuals. Others ask why not? Why can’t we track those who come to our country, what are they trying to hide?

What sorts of information might the have? Well they can store 37 Kb or a small file with things like name, nationality, sex, etc, but will not have social security numbers or residence addresses? Some say big deal you could look that up and then someone could rob their house knowing they are gone? The electronic passports will also contain a digital signature and have enough data storage for biometric information too. Since there are 57 million people with passports now it may be awhile as only about 8-million come up for renewal annually, but many feel this is a giant step needed for Global Security. What do you think?

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