RFID chips, passports and danger

New passports are to have RFID chips, supposedly to protect us all from terrorists. Wikipedia definition of the chip is

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a method of remotely storing and retrieving data using devices called RFID tags. An RFID tag is a small object, such as an adhesive sticker, that can be attached to or incorporated into a product. RFID tags contain antennas to enable them to receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from an RFID transceiver.

One of these little fellows goes on your passport, and Bob's your uncle, anyone with a low tech radio device can read your passport details as you walk down the street. A Wired article goes into this in detail

New U.S. passports will soon be read remotely at borders around the world, thanks to embedded chips that will broadcast on command an individual's name, address and digital photo to a computerized reader.

The rub is that your passport does not have to be physically read by being put into a reader, any suitable RFID transceiver can decode the chip from several feet away

civil libertarians and some technologists say the chips are actually a boon to identity thieves, stalkers and commercial data collectors, since anyone with the proper reader can download a person's biographical information and photo from several feet away.

The whole brouhaha has stirred up so much controversy already the US Government is now trying to pretend that the chips they are putting in passports are "contactless chips" or “contactless integrated circuits” in fact anything other than Radio Frequency ID tags. But make no mistake these chips are RFID tags, can be read by a remote reader without encryptation, and leave your passport details vulnerable to anyone wanting to snoop.

Why should this bother your. Well take for example a hotel in a foreign land, they will be able to get hold of all the (increasingly comprehensive) details on your passport from their reader. These details could be sold on for commercial use. And more chillingly let us say you are walking down the street in Cairo (or any other country) on a carefree holiday, anyone with a grudge against the US government, and hence its citizens, could identify your nationality as you walked down the street, and take whatever action they desired against you.

Its a grim scenario, these RFID passports are not likely to protect the world against terrorists, it will just cost terrorists more to get a "genuine" passport. But it will leave you open to all sorts of abuses of your privacy, or even your life. Me, when I get one of these passports, I will take the advice given by those that know, and wrap it in aluminium foil to carry it around. This creates what is known as a Faraday Cage, and stops remote unauthorised reading of your passport. All you do is take it out of its aluminium envelope when you give it to the nice man at immigration for him to read on his RFID machine.