Category: RFID

WASHINGTON–As controversy rages over forthcoming federal Real ID requirements, state officials should be plotting public relations strategies to counteract the well-publicized rebellion, past and present state motor vehicle administrators advised their colleagues Monday. Civil liberties and privacy groups, as well as organizations like the National Governors Association, have attacked the 2005 law as insufficiently protective of privacy and too costly to implement. But that’s exactly the sort of message motor vehicle departments need to offset with their own materials trumpeting the plan’s perceived benefits, suggested Lucinda Babers, interim director of the District of Columbia DMV, and Betty

Action by a divided U.S. Senate on Thursday raises new questions about the fate of a contentious plan to outfit Americans with new digital identification cards by 2013. By a 50-44 vote mostly along party lines, the chamber set aside a Republican-backed amendment to a homeland security spending bill that would have spread $300 million across the states to help them implement the so-called Real ID Act. The Senate also agreed unanimously to adopt an amendment, proposed by vocal Real ID critic Max Baucus (D-Mont.), which prohibits the use of any of the spending bill’s funding for

The U.S. Senate took a preliminary step on Wednesday toward reining in the controversial Real ID Act, which is scheduled to become America’s first federal identification card in a few years. During Wednesday’s floor debate over a massive immigration bill, Real ID foes managed to preserve an amendment to prohibit the forthcoming identification card from being used for mandatory employment verification, signaling that the political winds have shifted from when the law was overwhelmingly enacted two years ago. For more info click here

Opposition is growing to a forthcoming digital ID card for American citizens, but it may be too late to make sweeping changes to the controversial identification requirements. During a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) savaged the Real ID Act as an unwarranted intrusion into Americans’ personal lives that a Republican-controlled Senate enacted two years ago without a single hearing or debate. For more info click here

ARLINGTON, Va.–One of the chief Republican architects of the controversial federal Real ID law on Thursday said the forthcoming nationalized identification cards are not an “unfunded mandate” and called for hearings to dispel myths about the proposed system. Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), the ranking member of a U.S. House of Representatives government oversight panel, said he has asked committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) to hold hearings to explore questions related to the requirements, which were approved by Congress as part of an emergency military-spending bill two years ago. “States don’t have to participate,” Davis told attendees at

WASHINGTON–A forthcoming travel identification card geared toward Americans who frequently cross U.S. borders into Mexico and Canada is drawing renewed criticism. At a Monday workshop here, privacy advocates said they were puzzled that come summertime, the U.S. Department of State, in consultation with the Department of Homeland Security, still hopes to begin issuing so-called “passport cards” embedded with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips whose data can be skimmed by readers up to at least 20 feet away. For more info click here