WASHINGTON-A watchdog group said the Department of Homeland Security is considering requiring radio frequency identification chips in drivers’ licenses, an option that it warned carries huge costs and poses privacy risks to Americans.
In a new report, “Real ID: Big Brother Could Cost Big Money,” Citizens Against Government Waste said integrating RFID chips that carry detailed personal information would cost $17.4 billion and could push the cost of a drivers’ license from between $10 and $25 to at least $90.
“With the high price of gasoline and massive costs of hurricane recovery already burdening Americans, federal agencies should not be saddling drivers and taxpayers with billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said.
CAGW said the Real ID measure, touted as an anti-terrorist and immigration reform bill, was buried in an $82 billion military spending bill and passed without any congressional debate in May. However, according to CAGW, most states already were making secure cards at a reasonable cost and improving application procedures. CAGW said that while states are not technically forced to accept federal standards, the refusal of any state to comply with the Real ID law would affect its citizens’ abilities to get jobs, receive Social Security benefits, or fly on commercial planes.
Forty-nine states currently use either magnetic stripes or two-dimensional technology on drivers’ licenses and have had minimal identity theft problems, said CAGW. If DHS opts for RFID chips, CAGW predicts more than 196 million U.S. drivers will be forced to carry licenses with the memory to store every detail about a person, including health records, family history and bank and credit card transactions. CAGW noted that data on RFID chips can be accessed remotely by unauthorized hackers.
“The idea of turning licenses into ‘smart cards’ is far from brilliant. RFID chips would force some states to shelve millions of dollars of investment into their own security solutions and start from scratch. With the governments’ long history of technological ineptitude, RFID chips could make citizens more vulnerable to identity theft and government snooping. If the chips fall where they should, they will not be included in any American’s ID card,” said Schatz.
