In light of the growing interest in RFID tags by government and industry alike we find the dark side. There was a presentation at HOPE in NYC this summer where there was a demonstration of RFID hacking. With all of the scenarios that have been dreamt up so far we find that lawmakers are starting to take notice. Most notably is the legislature in California.
The Identity Information Protection Act of 2006 was passed by state legislators last month and only needs the approval of California Gobernator Arnold Schwarzenegger to become law. The measures are designed to safeguard against either criminal of government abuse of RFID tags by mandating the use of privacy-protecting technologies, such as encryption. The bill, authored by State Senator Joe Simitian (Democrat), would also give Californians the right to decide who can access their personal information stored on RFID cards in documents such as driver’s licences, library cards and the like.
Privacy pundits are hoping that this law will take root and spread to other states (and in my case provinces). But, with Bush in the White House I’m not overly hopeful.
[tags]California, RFID, Indentity Information Protection Act, Privacy, ID Theft[/tags]