ACLU seeks results of tests of chips in passports

A civil liberties group is seeking the results of tests the government has conducted on computerized tags it plans to place on all U.S. passports, charging in a statement that officials have "inexplicably kept the details of this testing process secret."

In a related development, the State Department official in charge of passport management said his office would consider putting additional security features in place to ensure that the tags, which will contain a holder's name, passport number and other identification, cannot be intercepted by another party.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has obtained official documents about the passport plans in the past, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for "the results of tests that the government has been carrying out in preparation for embedding radio computer chips in all U.S. passports," the group said in a statement.

The request seeks the documents from the State Department and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, which has been testing how close a reader would have to be placed next to a tag in order to obtain data. The ACLU and other privacy groups are concerned that identity thieves, terrorists and other criminals could surreptitiously steal the data from passport holders, using even a simple reader--a process known as skimming.

Electronic privacy experts and officials from other governments say the tiny chips, known as radio frequency identification tags, are vulnerable to tampering. State Department officials say the department would ensure that the tags comply with internationally accepted guidelines. According to those guidelines, established by the International Civil Aviation Organization, the maximum readable distance between a tag and a reader should be no more than 10 centimeters, a little less than four inches. The department says the tags will make the process of checking passports at border crossings more efficient.

But the ACLU has questioned whether the chips truly can be made to relinquish their data only in such close proximity to a reader. The group has cited press reports claiming the tags can be read from up to 30 feet away. The ACLU said it had acquired its own reader and found that the tags meeting the international guidelines were readable from at least one meter away, a little more than three feet.

Apparently recognizing that the tags may be readable from a greater distance than previously thought, Frank Moss, State's deputy assistant secretary for passport services, said Monday that his office was "taking a very serious look" at new privacy measures.

In an interview with Wired News, Moss said, "Basically what changed my mind was a recognition that the [reading distance] may have actually been able to be more than 10 centimeters, and also recognition that we had to do everything possible to protect the security of people." Wired News reported that Moss said he would consider requiring tag readers to provide electronic keys or passwords prior to reading any data, and encyrpting data as it passed from the tag to the reader, to make it unusable if it were intercepted.

State spokeswoman Kelly Shannon said the department was looking into other security measures, including enhancements to passport covers that would counter the risk of skimming if the passport were closed or mostly closed. "We will not issue these passports to American citizens until we have addressed the security concerns," Shannon said.

Barry Steinhardt, the director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project, said documents the group obtained from State show that the U.S. government neglected other countries' and outside experts' warnings about skimming and privacy protection when the International Civil Aviation Organization drafted the radio tag guidelines.

"I think this is an example of American haughtiness," Steinhardt said after announcing the new information request.

As to Moss' statement that State would look at other security measures now, Steinhardt questioned why the department was acting after the concerns had been raised in official meetings and in the press. "I can only conclude that either they were spectacularly ill-informed about the capability of the technology they were proposing, or they intended…for it to be used for other purposes." The ACLU has said the tags would make it easier for governments and the private sector to conduct "routine tracking" of passport holders.