ACLU seeks results of passport 'tag' test

[The Straight Story]

ACLU seeks results of passport 'tag' test
By Shane Harris
[e-mail]

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, Social Security 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.

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