jonathan butz

Article in WSJ on RFID.

The RealID Act was passed 20050511 and goes into effect 20080511.

This law defines the minimum standards a state-issued driver’s license must meet to be considered valid for any Federal purpose including entrance to a Federal building and travel on an airline.

The law states that cards must contain: “A common machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements.” The selection of the technology is delegated to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

There are three technologies that can be used to store information on an ID card: magnetic strip, smart chip, RFID tag.

Magnetic stips are widely in use now to store ID card information according to standards defined by the AAMVA. Cards must be swiped to access the information.

Smart card chips have very high capacity compared to magnetic strips and also require being fed into a reader. Information can also be encrypted and tied to a PIN to prevent unauthorized access.

RFID technologies allow the easiest access to information stored thereon. The core is similar to smart card technology. But instead of feeding the card into a reader for access, information can be read passively from a short distance using a radio frequency device.

Opponents of RFID technology are concerned that RFID will be the technology selected, and they fear that information about an individual could be read passively without his knowledge, possibly at greater distance than intended. Security methods employed on existing RFID cards has been compromised by hackers, and scanning distances have been proven at as much as sixty feet with modified equipment.

Magnetic strip and smart card technologies meet the needs of this proposed NationalID card without the security risks associated with RFID.

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