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[quote=Anonymous][quote]Coming Soon: National ID Cards?
Recently passed Real ID Act undermines civil rights, critics charge.
By Erik Larkin, PCWorld    May 31, 2005 2:00 pm

WASHINGTON -- Driver's licenses will become national ID cards--and Americans will be at greater risk of identity theft--under a new federal law that passed without significant congressional debate, critics charge.

The Real ID Act will require that states verify every license applicant's identity and residency status, and that they store addresses, names, and driving records in a database that every other state can access. It also mandates anticounterfeiting features for the licenses and a "common machine readable technology." In three years, licenses that don't meet the standards won't be accepted as identification for boarding an airplane, opening a bank account, or satisfying any other federally regulated use..............................
...Machine Readable = RFID?
The requirement that licenses incorporate a "machine-readable technology" is similarly vague. Already, 47 states--all but Alaska, Oklahoma, and Wyoming--have a bar code or a magnetic stripe. Either one would satisfy the law's mandate, as would radio frequency ID (RFID), a broadcast technology planned for upcoming electronic U.S. passports.

The broad language of the new law "really allows for many possibilities," says Neville Pattinson, director of technology and government affairs at the U.S. headquarters in Austin, Texas, of the European company Axalto, which makes smart cards. A small computer chip in each card stores information and may include features such as encryption. Axalto makes both contactless chips, which use RFID, and contact chips, which must be touched to be read. The company is bidding to supply the contactless chips for the new passports.[quote]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/121077/coming_soon_national_id_cards.html
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