Government Backing off on RFID's in Passports -- Sort of

Photo Credit: veralu

Wired is reporting that Feds are rethinking RFID Passport That is good news but they are still going to us these devices in new passports, only now they will at least have encryption of some sort now.

Following criticism from computer security professionals and civil libertarians about the privacy risks posed by new RFID passports the government plans to begin issuing, a State Department official said his office is reconsidering a privacy solution it rejected earlier that would help protect passport holders' data.

The solution would require an RFID reader to provide a key or password before it could read data embedded on an RFID passport's chip. It would also encrypt data as it's transmitted from the chip to a reader so that no one could read the data if they intercepted it in transit. More...