TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Passport Cards Soon Will Reduce Waits For Travelers

ADVERTISEMENT

The Washington Post

Published: January 1, 2008

WASHINGTON - The federal government soon will offer passport cards equipped with electronic data chips to U.S citizens who travel frequently between the United States and Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean.

The cards can be read wirelessly from 20 feet, offering convenience to travelers but raising security and privacy concerns about the possibility of data being intercepted.

The goal of the passport card is to reduce waits at land and sea border checkpoints. Border agents can use an electronic device that reads the radio frequency identification signals from multiple cards simultaneously at a distance, checking travelers against terrorist and criminal watch lists while they sit in their cars.

"As people are approaching a port of inspection, they can show the card to the reader and by the time they get to the inspector, all the information will have been verified and they can be waved on through," said Ann Barrett, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services, commenting on the final rule on passport cards published Monday in the Federal Register. "It's good security, but it's there to facilitate travel as well."

The $45 card will be optional and cannot be used for air travel. Travelers can opt for a more secure, if costly, e-passport, which costs $97 and contains a radio frequency chip that can be read at a distance of 3 inches.

The e-passport, which is encrypted, must be swiped to be read and sends out a different, random number each time it is swiped.

But privacy and security experts said the new passport cards that transmit information over longer distances are much less secure.

"The government is fundamentally weakening border security and privacy for passport holders in order to get people through the lines faster," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, which submitted comments in opposition to the proposed rule, along with 4,000 others, the vast majority in opposition.

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT