We generally don’t consider a crease to be damaged or mutilated such that it would prevent travel. Even if the RFID chip in the passport fails to operate, as long as the data and photo are legible, there should be no problem.
Colorado Passport Agency
February 23, 2012
Denver family stranded after passport denied because of crease
[H/T Say Uncle.
So… what this appears to mean is that you may intentionally (perhaps with plausible deniability) destroy the RFID chip and not worry about it invalidating your passport. This eliminates all the concerns about remote RFID scanning. It also means our government knows and acknowledges the RFID chips do not enhance security. Any security arguments made about their use in passports is invalid by their own admission.
One must now ask, “What is the real reason why they want RFID chips in the passports?”—Joe]
In a word, convenience. And also profits for the makers of RFID chips and readers.
I honestly think it is more of a busywork budget padding project than anything sneaky.
It’s just another waste of money / full employment program.
Some things are not as nefarious as they seem. RFID chips are useful in automatically verifying the validity of a passport. So is the fancy paper, the printing, the picture of the passport holder and so on. If the picture and ID pages get destroyed the RFID chip can be useful in verifying its validity for replacing the passport. And a simple mu-metal passport holder will stop any attempts at reading the chip remotely. 😉
My most recent passport re-application was turned down because I submitted 10 year old passport pictures, my spares from the last re-application, and somebody noticed they just about matched the ones in my old passport. So I had to spend $10 and get new ones, which of course more accurately show my decade-older face. So I can’t really complain about that.
They are already starting to put them under the skin. India’s even made it mandatory for all its citizens. You know, for their own good. Scary stuff.
http://www.infowars.com/cashless-society-india-implements-first-biometric-id-program-for-all-of-its-1-2-billion-residents/
Keep in mind that the technology does exist to include GPS tracking in this stuff. That’s what they do for pets, among others.
I think it’s a ridiculous circus to be so vigilant at the airports, but our illegal immigration situation is such a travesty. It’s like we have steel gate with armed guards out front, but there’s a hole in the fence in back. Crazy.
They don’t do that for pets. All it is is a unique ID that can be read by a scanner a few inches from the pet. There’s no secret hi-tech satellite tracking bunker that can display your pet’s location on a big display, but if you have the number registered and the pet’s turned in at a shelter or somesuch, they can give you a phone call. GPS is too big and power hungry for implantation, and you would be shielding the antenna.
Having said that, I’m not keen for big brother to be able to scan me, even with the ones that work from a couple of metres. None of their [bad word] business where I am. I would like to put one of the pet ones in my wrist, so I can have doors and things that are locked for everyone but me. I have the readers and some injectors, just need to do some development.
Follow the money, it’s all insider-trading with the Senate and Congress. Somebody knew somebody who needed a favor and got somebody a Government contract, and then somebody’s stock went shootin’ up after the deal went down.
@ MR E
Hmm. My bad. I get to be wrong once per week, so I guess that was it. But hey, what a great idea, right?
In correcting myself, I found this post which has a lot of information on the different ways they are using RFID chips in humans:
“Your papers…er…RFID, please.”
http://www.biblicalsense.org/?p=120
~ TG