Data - carrying chips set off Big Brother fears

Tri-Valley Herald
Aug. 21, 2005

The government has so much information on Californians — mostly carried on cards in their wallets and purses — that it could swiftly become something like Big Brother from novelist George Orwell's "1984" in this post Sept. 11 world.

That's the way a diverse coalition of privacy and consumer groups see it. Government and technology firms disagree. And state lawmakers have jumped into the middle with landmark legislation on "radio-frequency identification," which experts said could mushroom like the Internet.

A Bay Area lawmaker, siding with the civil-liberty coalition, is winning legislative approval of a bill to curb possible abuse of cards and other items with data-carrying transmission chips already used, for instance, to automatically pay bridge tolls, access buildings and parking lots, unlock cars, identify students and check out library books.

Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, is concerned that personal information on the proliferating chips, which transmit information to a receiver when asked, could be intercepted and misused or employed illicitly.

Supporters of the bill fear, at the least, that someone with a data "reader" could steal personal information, for instance, at a political rally or an abortion clinic — a concern foes of the measure said is exaggerated and liken to banning the Internet due to potential abuse.

Simitian's bill, SB682, which sets standards for use of Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, technology by public agencies in California, has cleared the Senate and moved forward in the Assembly this past week as lawmakers move toward the end of their 2005 session Sept. 9.

The lawmaker testified he wants to "get ahead of this problem" of Californians essentially broadcasting extensive information about themselves.

"Once this technology proliferates into millions of government identity documents, it's going to be very hard to put the genie back into the bottle," he said.

Images of "1984," which warns against Big Brother blanket surveil-lance by government, came to opponents of recent plans by a Northern California elementary school to take attendance by pinning tiny electronic tags on students as they walked into class.

The uproar caused the school to drop the proposal for use of the technology, which is so effective one senator unsuccessfully pitched a proposal to place it in dogs and cats sold in the state to aid in identifying runaways.

Other proponents of the technology, which include government agencies and high-tech firms, see it as an almost limitless, safeguarded tool that could, for instance, be used to discourage kidnapping, make it more difficult to counterfeit drivers licenses and improve passport security.

Supporters of RFID said the bills sponsors are overreacting to fears that residents location or movements will be improperly tracked, or that they will become the victims of stalking or identity theft.

The High-Tech Trust Coalition, which represents about two dozen,

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technology-related firms, said SB 682 embraces false fears and misrepresentations of fact to impose a ban on technology proven both secure and reliable.

Some Republican lawmakers agree with foes of the bill, saying they fear a beneficial technology could get sidetracked.

Simitians SB682 would apply only to government use of RFID. It would allow public agencies now employing the technology to continue and would make it a misdemeanor to steal data from one of the data-carrying chips.

The bill would not apply to commercial use of the technology. Wal-Mart, for example, currently uses it to track inventory.

The measure would prohibit the use of RFID tags on drivers licenses, government health or benefit cards, public library cards and on student identification cards in kindergarten through 12th grade.

For other public uses, such as mass transit or university identification cards, the bill would impose various safety features. Those steps would include measures such as notifying users, encrypting words and requiring shields or other methods to discourage abuse.

Despite the bills limitations, its foes, which include state agencies, still said it heads in the wrong direction. The Department of Consumer Affairs, for instance, believes the technology is especially useful for the disabled.

Bill foes also said data-carrying chips, rather than invading privacy, could instead be employed to bolster protections. Information now on drivers license could be encoded on a chip so data could not be easily deciphered by anyone who steals the card.

But the American Civil Liberties Union said it is worried RFID technology could be used to infringe on the right to anonymous speech by, for example reading the IDs of people attending a rally.

In addition, RFID readers could be used to identify patients and doctors entering or leaving a Planned Parenthood clinic or an anonymous HIV testing site.

Some backers of the bill argued that the technology is vulnerable to governmental abuse and point to recent developments during the war on terrorism.

The Free Congress Foundation is very wary of having government from the federal level on down adapting new technologies without due consideration of the privacy implications, according to the foundation.

With RFID technology, a great temptation is presented to governments to track citizens and their habits with complete disregard to their privacy.