Privacy activists protest electronic passports

On the latest passports, the agency has "taken a 'keep it simple' approach, which unfortunately, really disregards a basic privacy approach and leaves out the basic security methods we would have expected to have been incorporated for the security of the documents," said Neville Pattinson, an executive at Axalto North America, which is working on a prototype US electronic passport.

As part of heightened security since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, all new US passports issued by the end of 2005 are expected to have a chip containing the holders' name, birth date, and issuing office, as well as a biometric identifier -- a photo of the holders' face. The photo is the international standard for biometrics, but countries are free to add other biometrics, such as fingerprints, for greater accuracy.

Privacy advocates have protested about the security standards for the passports, but Pattinson is the most prominent person involved in their creation to express concern that they could become prey for identity thieves if safeguards are not standardized.

The international passport standards call for "a very sophisticated smart card device," that uses a chip and an antenna embedded in the passports' covers, Pattinson said.

Unlike less expensive and less sophisticated RFID tags, the passport chips would be microprocessors that could send one piece of information at a time in answer to queries from a machine reader. They also could be equipped with multiple layers of encryption for security.

The international standards spell out ways that the passports could incorporate more protection from identity thieves, but they make those methods optional.

Under the standards, information on the chip could be picked up by someone who wires a briefcase with a reader, then swings it within inches of a passport, Pattinson said. Over a greater distance, an interloper could eavesdrop on border control devices reading the passports, he said.

"There's no security built into it," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the ACLU. "This will enable identity theft and put Americans at some risk when they travel internationally."

One rudimentary way to protect electronic passports from identity thieves is to wrap them in tinfoil, which blocks radio waves. A single-size potato chip bag would do the trick. Protecting border control agents' readers with a metal shield would protect against eavesdropping.

The International Civil Aviation Organization and State Department say they are studying more-organized methods. The privacy issues "are being looked at," said Denis Schagnon, a spokesman for ICAO. "This is a process that is being implemented over the next few years; it is not something that happens overnight."