Passport Tech Plan Rankles

A controversial proposal by the U.S. Department of State to implant radio frequency identification transmitters in both American and foreign passports as part of its biometric passport initiative has drawn substantial opposition from members of the business travel community. Such organizations as the Association of Corporate Travel Executives and the Business Travel Coalition filed official complaints with the State Department on April 4, at the close of a period for public commentary, and yet the future of RFID-equipped passports remains uncertain.

The new passports, which the State Department intends to roll out to certain categories of government employees this August and to all U.S. passport agencies in the following nine to 12 months, will be embedded with "passive" electronic tags containing biographical traveler data. Some security experts argue that the chip's signal, which can be detected up to several yards, may identify U.S. citizens as targets abroad and make travelers more vulnerable to identity theft at home.

"The big issue is what's called contact versus contactless technology," said Bruce McIndoe, CEO of IJet Travel Risk Management. "Most privacy experts would prefer that the government be using contact technology—smart card technology where the information is embedded on a chip. You put the card into a reader, the information is encrypted on that chip and they pull the information off. When you're walking around, unless you have physical contact with that card, you can't get your information off."

Opponents of the program remain skeptical of State Department assurances that the technology is secure and that the tags, called "contact list chips" by the department, can only be read if a passport is completely open and within four inches of a scanning device.

"It's not just a security issue, it's an operational issue as well," said Kelly Shannon, spokesperson for the Bureau of Consular Affairs, a division of the State Department. "In those operations at the port of entry, the customs officers are in a kind of elongated rectangular cube separated from each other with one on the right, one on the left. If there was an eavesdropping issue, if one chip was being read and the other reader was picking it up, it would be a problem. That's why it's the four inches maximum read range. If eavesdropping happened, you'd fail at your border operations."

Despite State Department assurances, opponents aren't entirely convinced. "There is no doubt that RFID technology can be shielded or coded in some way," said ACTE president Greeley Koch in a statement. "But it is once again developing a false reliance on technology. A mass-produced, cheap, electronic identification system that is bound to be lost or stolen in large quantities is bound to be defeated."

Originally developed for inventory and supply management, RFID technology, McIndoe said, never was intended to be used for security purposes. With concerns ranging from pickpocketing and petty theft to kidnapping and terrorism, the benefits of implementing such technology came under increased scrutiny as debate heated in the weeks prior to the close of the period for public commentary.

"Essentially you're walking around broadcasting 'it's me, it's me, it's me.' People are saying that's stupid, and from a security perspective, I absolutely agree," McIndoe said. "We see no enhanced benefit beyond the optical encoding that already exists on passports, where they run it through the little scanner and it pulls the information into the reader. The inspector needs to physically inspect the document anyway to make sure it hasn't been tampered with or stolen, so the concept of this being an E-Zpass where you can walk through border control is a pipe dream."

Some industry representatives view the RFID initiative with a gentler eye. "We think the State Department is going to make sure this is the most secure technology it can be. To come out and say that this is going to be the worst thing that ever happened to security, well, that's simply not true," said Bill Connors, executive director and COO of the National Business Travel Association. "The first people who are going to test this thing are U.S. diplomats and government officials, if they weren't confident in the technology, they wouldn't be testing it on themselves. Rather than get into this big brouhaha, we've decided to sit down with State and try to really understand the issue."

As the industry waits for the State Department to assess the recently filed public commentary and determine if and when it will start issuing passports employing the divisive technology, IJet's McIndoe offered some pragmatic advice to concerned travelers. "My recommendation is to hurry up and get your passports renewed. Typically, it's a 10- or 15-year renewal period, and hopefully in that time the government will have gotten its act together and you won't have to worry about this."