August 14, 2010

RFID or Radio Frequency Identification on passports

We recently renewed my family's passports to the latest ePass - the Philippines' own version of the Biometric Passport. I've been reading up on the technology they use to embed information on the passport because I was concerned about RFID and all that stuff. In a nutshell, without being too technical about it, RFID is that technology where intelligent bar codes such as those found in tags or labels of products you buy in the mall or in the department stores, 'talk' to a network system that tracks these products, as you put them in your shopping cart or if you are daring enough, shoplift them. It's a label or tag that can be tracked or monitored within a given range by reading or capturing  the radio frequency that is emitted from the tag/label. Quite a nifty technology actually, but then,  if used on passports, how would you know if your information is already being captured, read and stolen by some tech savvy crook and distorted for selfish ends? I still have to do a lot more research about this especially if they use this technology on our local ePass. I don't want my data to be stolen and eventually be misused at my expense. Now, do I really need an rfid wallet to protect my passport data being stolen? There are lots of conflicting data online so I just want to be sure I'm posting the right thing. For sure, I will read more about this and share whatever I learn here on my blog.

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