Aug 09, 2007Washington State has decided to issue driver's licenses with RFID transponders in them (see Washington Driver's Licenses to Carry EPC Gen 2 Inlays). But next January, residents of "the Evergreen State" might not be the only ones crossing the U.S.-Canada border with RFID-enabled driver's licenses.
The government of British Columbia is awaiting approval from Canada's federal government regarding a proposal to embed RFID inlays in driver's licenses issued to residents of British Columbia, as part of a voluntary program that will begin in January and run in tandem with the Washington State initiative. Canada's federal public safety minister, Stockwell Day, supports the measure to test the technology and is expected to approve it soon.
"We have, in front of the Federal government, a draft of the memorandum of agreement that will parallel the one that U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Washington Governor Chris Gregoire signed March 23, 2007," says John van Dongen, B.C.'s minister of state for intergovernmental relations.
The licenses would provide residents of British Columbia with an alternative to presenting a Canadian passport to agents at the Canadian border, which will be required by the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative's land and sea border-crossing requirements, set for enactment in 2009.
The licenses would be more affordable than Canadian passports, and both B.C. and Washington State expect the long-range, UHF inlay embedded in the licenses to facilitate speedier security checks than the current system, in which residents hand identification documents to border agents upon reaching a border checkpoint.
Neither country's border agency has released the final procedures for how the RFID-enabled cards will be read at border crossings, but both van Dongen and Paul Hunter, a representative of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Information Technology, say the steps will be similar to how the CBP and the Canadian Border Services Agency process travelers carrying the RFID-enabled cards used in the NEXUS program. NEXUS is designed to expedite border crossings for area residents of the United States and Canada who cross the U.S.-Canada border frequently.
Currently, RFID interrogators mounted at designated NEXUS automobile checkpoint lanes read the identification number encoded to the inlay embedded in each card when a driver is waiting at a stop sign just before an agent's booth. This number is used to automatically call up the name, image, address and other personal data of the driver (and any passengers inside the car carrying RFID-enabled NEXUS cards) from a secure database each border agency maintains.
By the time the car reaches the agent's booth, all pertinent data on the NEXUS cardholders is called up on the agent's computer screen. The agent then conducts a short interview before allowing the car to pass, as long as no security threat is detected. (NEXUS program participants must submit to an extensive background check, and are only granted admission into the program if they are deemed a low security risk.)
The DHS plans to create a PASS card that would serve as an alternative to using a passport at land and sea crossings. The department says UHF Gen 2 ISO 18000-6C tags and readers will be used for the PASS card, and that any other alternative identification used to satisfy the WHTI requirements—including Washington driver's licenses and any RFID-enabled licenses that other states might propose—will also need to carry UHF Gen 2 tags. Canada has stated its plans to follow suit, which is why the proposed B.C. license would carry UHF Gen 2 inlays.
Doug Henderson, a spokesperson with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, which issues B.C. licenses, says it has identified a candidate provider for the RFID-enabled licenses. The organization says it will contract the candidate if the measure to test the system is approved. Washington State announced in late July that Digimarc will provide the RFID-enabled licenses to be used in the Washington pilot program.
Privacy advocates and members of the RFID industry have expressed concerns over the use of EPC Gen 2 tags and interrogators in the proposed RFID-enabled driver licenses (which will be optional for Washington residents and, according to the B.C. proposal, for residents of B.C.), because the Gen 2 protocol does not support data encryption, and because the cards will be readable from a distance of up to 20 feet (see RFID Vendors Brief Congress on PASS Card Security).
Hunter says the identification of individuals carrying the cards will be secure because access to the personal information linked to the card ID numbers will sit behind a secure firewall. "We believe we can improve security, improve convenience and reduce costs for citizens, and for both U.S. and Canada's federal governments," van Dongen says of B.C.'s RFID-enabled driver license initiative.
According to Hunter, the CBP has performed some tests of Gen 2 tags and readers in its facilities, but has not yet conducted any real-world testing of Gen 2-enabed licenses. He says the CBP did perform some tests of alternative technologies, but that the ability to pre-populate CBP agents' screens with data is the best means the agency has found to improve the flow of traffic over the borders.
Hunter says that with the large volume of land and sea crossings, having to manually inspect the identification of each and every person crossing a border adds seconds to the process. "The only way to get rid of those seconds," he notes, "is to use UHF RFID."
David Karn, a spokesperson with the B.C. government, says that other Canadian provinces, including Ontario, also have plans to begin issuing RFID-enabled driver's licenses, in an effort to provide residents a means of complying with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.
