American passports issued after January 1 of this year now have a little friend attached to them: an RFID tag.
RFID tags are small identification tags which are normally used by companies to track goods. They require no separate power source and are read by radio waves.
The tags currently being introduced into new passports carry the same information as the passport itself but in digital form. The purpose is to expedite passport control and also to help eliminate counterfeits.
An embedded RFID chip doesn’t mean that some CIA satellite can track your every move, but it does mean that you stand a much greater risk of some hacker pulling your personal data out of thin air. The government has put in a number of safety measures to ensure this doesn’t happen, but security expert Bruce Schneier writing for the Washington Post practically mocks their efforts. Dedicated hackers will figure out a way to circumvent the security measures and shortly after landing in Moscow, the entire Russian Mafia will know a lot more about you than they should.
So what to do?
Take a hammer to it.
According to an article in Wired Magazine, there aren’t too many ways to destroy the chip without drawing attention to your efforts–except a solid whack with a hammer. Keep in mind, however, that there are stiff fines for “tampering” with your passport so we here at Gadling certainly wouldn’t recommend engaging in hammer time simply to protect your personal data from hackers. But, it’s something you might want to think about.