Lawmakers put up blocks to RFID tags

Barbara Grady

California legislators put up some roadblocks this week before a hot new technology that’s increasingly used in tagging packages and inventory is used to track individuals and expose their personal data to identity theft.

Called RFID or Radio Frequency Identity tags, the technology involves devices that store data and can transmit it through miniature antennae that respond to RFID radio signals. When a RFID reader emits a radio signal, RFID tags respond with their stored information.

The Senate on Monday passed the Identity Information Protection Act, following Assembly passage of a similar bill last spring, so that precautions such as encrypting data are taken before state, local and county government agencies consider using RFID tags for such things as student IDs, driver licenses, health insurance cards and the like.

“When we are talking about government identity documents, there are concerns about secrecy and privacy,” said state Sen. Joe Simitian D-Palo Alto, who authored the bill. “There’s a certain compulsion behind issuing documents by government — it’s not a matter of consumer choice.

“So the basic question (raised) is should state, local and federal governments require citizens to carry cards that broadcast all this information without consumers’s choice?”Simitian said the bill is a “a preventive measure. There were state agencies already starting to move in this direction” of issuing cards for various purposes. “People are already starting to move down this path and often without enough thought.”

The Department of Motor Vehicles said it had no plans to issue drivers’ licenses with RFID tags.

What raised Simitian’s concern, he said, was discussion at federal agencies, particularly the Homeland Security Department, about what technology should be used in the new federal identification system that will be deployed by 2008. The so-called REAL IDs, which states will have the option of issuing instead of drivers licenses, will follow yet-to-be decided specifications issued by Homeland Security. At one time, there was talk of including RFID chips in these REAL ID cards, according to Simitian and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“The REAL ID — that certainly raised the question,” said Simitian. “Then we had a case in 2005 of a small school district in Northern California that required kids at school to wear RFID cards.”

The Brittan school district had used RFID cards issued to kids as a way to track school attendance until parents and civil liberties groups forced the district to stop.

The State Department had also experimented with the idea of issuing RFID passports.

The Senate bill would do three things:

-Make it unlawful to scan someone’s personal information from government ID cards without their permission.

-Put some basic privacy protection requirements in place before government agencies use such cards, such as encryption requirements or using them for only randomly identifying numbers.

-Ask the California Research Bureau to study RFID and report to the Senate on what protections they think would be adequate.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office said the governor has not yet taken a position on the bill.