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An enterprising US-based company, Paraben, which normally deals with handheld and mobile phone forensics and security issues, has launched a new product to help protect those citizens who are still worried - despite many security features - about data from their electronic passport being eavesdropped or 'skimmed'.
The US State Department plans to issue the new e-passports to some 15 million citizens during 2007. The e-passports will use an embedded RFID chip that contains the information stored in the photo page, plus a digital photograph for visual confirmation of identity at border crossing points. Under strictly secured conditions, that information is decrypted and transmitted to the border control point's RFID reader (at a distance of no more than a few centimetres) for verification.
Addressing citizens' fears
But Paraben's marketing efforts for its new Passport StrongHold Bag assert that the e-passport's information is somehow at risk from eavesdroppers, skimmers, and ne'er-do-wells. There is no doubt that many citizens are worried - whether rightly or wrongly, and whether they're well informed or otherwise - about the growing use of technology for national security.
As Paraben points out, RFID technology is already in use in common everyday devices such as credit cards and toll tags. And any technology that transmits personal data must be secured. With this in mind, the company has produced what it calls a "Faraday cage-like" bag into which e-passports can be placed when not actually in use at border control points.
The company notes that the bag can also be used for the protection of RFID-based (contactless) payment cards and tokens.
RF blocking bags
Paraben's Passport StrongHold bags use the principles of a Faraday cage (effectively an electrical isolation cage) to stop any possibility of the RFID tag being activated and transmitting and receiving data while the e-passport is in the bag.
The bag's walls contains woven nickel, copper, and silver strands, which the company says is fully effective against unwanted and unauthorised RF transmissions: When the passport is in the bag, no signal can escape. All that is required at border control points is to briefly remove the passport from the bag for scanning, and then the citizen can place it back in the bag afterward.
Source: Paraben Corporation
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