What benefits, do I get, personally out of RFID tagged US Passports that are bring rolled out this October?

Question

I just found out today, that as of October, the USA is rolling out RFID tagged passports.

It's a chip, embedded into the passport, that has a teeny, tiny radio transponder, that sends and receives information about the item (or in this case) person holding the passport.

Includes all that pertinent data, digitized, we so love and guard.

The fundametalist religious people must just love this one!

Lots of yip yap about the wrong people getting their hands on the right equipment. All sorts f fun uses ranging form Identity fraud to kidnapping (i.e.- here comes the American, German, French, Japanese) like a red dot on a screen.

And who is really benefiting from all this? Me, the RFID tagged citizen-consumer who pays too much taxes, and whose life is regulated, and apparently going to pay pay pay?

I am trying, very hard to see the features and benefits on this new device.

Answer 1

Last I heard, they were planning on using unencrypted information. They started getting some flak, so they started reconsidering. If you don't NEED a passport in October, I would wait until they get the bugs worked out. They way they originally planned it, you could well be the target of a kidnapping by someone who doesn't like Americans. Or, even in the US, anyone with a hand-held reader could find out who you are and where you live by reading the chip in your passport. (I have heard that you can encase your passport in aluminum foil so it can't be read.

Answer 2

Absolutely none.