Swiss voters approved a government plan to switch over to electronic passports. These "e-passports" are tied to a national fingerprint registry, they also will contain a microchip that stores personal data, a digital photo, and two fingerprints. At borders or airports, travelers will have fingerprints scanned and photos taken to make sure they match their e-passports. This is a continuing trend in Europe, but what are the consequences? E-passports raise questions about whether this is the safest way to store our valuable information. Is there a major difference between grabbing a wallet out of someone's bag or hacking into a computer system to steal someone's identity?
I do not say this to be a pessimist, but more a realist... No matter what we do there will always be someone trying to bring you down. There will always be battles to be won or lost, it doesn't matter whether they are cyber or material. E-passports are a good idea to certain extent, but I am still not convinced. I like the idea that I don't have to carry anything around, but the world we know as the internet can be used for many more things than simply checking email and blogging. I am not neccessarily worried about what would be happening to my information, but rather I would be worried simply about who was looking at it. I don't like strangers knowing my personal information.
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I think that you have hit on what i consider the hard part of digital ID, that is privacy! How much are willing to give up and at what cost for convenience... and indeed is big brother watching us?
ReplyDeleteAre you traveling now? If so what do others say about the E-Passports?
ReplyDeleteMy dad and I have talked about this concept, he believes that it would be much easier for everything to be digital and thinks that carrying around plastic cards and pamphlets is a waste and could be all reduced into this one mainstream system. My thoughts differ. I find it scary to think, what if this system ever crashed or people hacked into this? I prefer to have the ID backed up in paper documents rather than my identity traveling around out there in some computer system.
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