Britain Troubled by Biometric Passports
// Russia is not troubled at all
The idea of a new-generation personal ID containing biometric data might fail, wasting the multi-million investment into its development. A group of British experts carried out a successful public experiment copying the data from a biometric passport’s chip. So, the UK Parliament is now discussing whether 3 million biometric passports, already issued to UK citizens, should be withdrawn. Experts say that Russia’s budget money allocated for the biometric passport program is going down the drain as well.
Experts of a British group NO2ID, who criticize the idea of electronic passports, have publicly copied all personal and biometric data of the holders of 3 authentic IDs from their RFID-chips. Guardian newspaper writes that the hackers needed only 48 hours to process all 3 passports, and a device costing only $330. Thus, they proved that it is not so hard to feign, or copy, the chip of a new-generation passport.
A biometric passport is an ID containing information on unique physiologic features of its holder. These are two- and three-dimensional photographs, fingerprints, and iris scans. The key element of such passport is an RFID-chip which consists of a microchip and an antenna for transmitting data. The chip’s memory keeps its own unique number and other information, depending on the sphere of usage. When a biometric passport holders comes into the registration zone, a special scanner reads the data off the mark. RFID-chip’s working range can reach up to 100 meters.
“Three million people in our country already have passports which allow all their personal information to be easily copied,” Britain’s Liberal Democrat party spokesman Nick Clegg told Guardian. “We should immediately withdraw the issued passports, and wait for a protected standard to be developed.”
The news about the drawbacks of new-generation IDs and about withdrawal of the already-issued passports might have global consequences, because hundreds of millions of dollars have been allocated for the biometric ID project and almost spent worldwide. Great Britain, for instance, spent $114 million. According to some previously made estimations, $7-10 billion will be needed to install special ID chips into the passports of 700 million tourists moving from country to country every year.
Russia is also spending much budget money on electronic passports. Russian government ratified the concept and the budget for introducing biometric IDs in spring 2005. R&D center Voskhod, which is the project’s prime contractor, creates a system worth $500 million. It is a network uniting over 8,000 passport-visa departments, stations of frontier control at Russia’s borders, and consular posts of Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry. Major Russian electronic companies are the project’s subcontractors. Among them is Sitronics group owned by Sistema joint-stock financial corporation. The company’s deputy PR president Elena Sanarova said that Sitronics won the tender in 2005 for developing the crystal for the chips used in biometric passports (Sitronics did not specify the sum of the tender).
The experiment with issuing biometric passports to citizens in Kaliningrad region and in Moscow began early in 2006. Russian citizens now hold some 2,000 new-generation IDs. Experts claim that Russian biometric passports are protected no better than British ones. “Our passports contain same RFID-chips, thus any student familiar with microelectronics can easily copy the data. He will need about $200 to buy the reader of RFID-marks,” said Sergey Moiseyenko, director general of RIMKO-XXI company, which develops alternative electronic passports. “It is also easily to buy a chip like that, and to save any information, including a virus, to the chip. Theoretically, a violator might paralyze the work of computer network at a frontier control station.”
Voskhod R&D center admits of the possibility of falsifying electronic documents as well. “Any document can be feigned. However, expensive polygraphic equipment is necessary for it, because the blanks are protected well,” said Maria Schneider, Voskhod’s deputy PR director. When asked why introducing a defenseless chip if blanks are well-protected enough, Schneider reminded that the U.S. and the EU require biometric passports for admission there.
According to Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, EU countries have not, in fact, agreed so far on which biometric parameters should be saved on passport chips. The EU has only agreed on a three-dimension black and white photograph. Russia, moreover, has considerable legal restrictions on introducing biometric passports. For instance, law-abiding Russian citizens register their fingerprints only on a free-will basis. If biometric foreign passports are introduced in Russia, the procedure will become obligatory.
Some data protection experts in Russia warn that hasty implementation of biometric passports will not add to security, but might even cause new threats. “It is not so necessary to introduce electronic passports. They do not increase security. Besides, the project is not cost-effective,” said InfoWatch marketing director Denis Zenkin. “It might be even harmful. Data base containing not only standard passport information, but also fingerprints, might soon appear on Moscow’s markets if everything works that way.”
Alexander Malakhov, Andrey Salnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 22, 2006
|
