Chips in official IDs raise privacy fears

[L. Coyote]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090711/ap_on_bi_ge/us_chipping_america_iv

By TODD LEWAN, AP National Writer Todd Lewan, Ap National Writer – Sat Jul 11, 3:38 pm ET

Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he'd bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car.

It took him 20 minutes to strike hacker's gold.

Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians' electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he'd "skimmed" the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet.

Embedding identity documents — passports, drivers licenses, and the like — with RFID chips is a no-brainer ..........