Picture this: you’re standing in line at customs in JFK International Airport, the duty free bottle of wine in your hands growing increasingly heavier, when a customs official walks up to you with a bar code scanner and says, “Okay, Ms. Louison, you can go ahead now.”  As you walk through the gates and leave the other unlucky souls behind, you thank God and the State Department for the $8 computer chip in your passport.

According to The New York Times, the State Department will soon begin issuing a new style of passport — one that carries your facial measurements and identifying information in a computer chip embedded in its front cover and pages.  Following in the steps of Australia, these new passports are meant to combat identity theft and passport fraud, but privacy watchdog groups like the The American Civil Liberties Union are concerned that the new technology will both violate individuals’ rights and leave American travelers open to potentially hostile electronic spying.

“This is like putting an invisible bull’s-eye on Americans that can be seen only by the terrorists,” said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program.

Laboratory tests, as yet substantiated in the field, indicate that the chips may be readable up to 30 feet. “Skimming” (electronic snooping) may be combated by carrying passports in a foil envelope or encrypting and password-protecting the data — but despite these measures, the ACLU sees the new technology as evidence of the United States’ increasing evolution into a surveillance society.  The combination of ever smarter technology and post 9-11 security measures increasingly beg the question: when do our individual liberties outweigh our national security?  

And, on a personal level, will my new passport put me in greater individual risk in order to protect our country? When I first moved to the Middle East, I was repeatedly warned not to show anyone my passport unless absolutely necessary — both to avoid being overcharged, but also to avoid being targeted as American.  The possibility that someone could walk next to me in the street and identify me instantly is unsettling, to say the least.  In our current climate of hostage-taking, unless the State Department can guarantee my anonymity, I’ll avoid replacing my passport for as long as possible.

llouison