South Africa Rolls Out Biometric Passports 60
volume4 writes "The South African Department of Home Affairs has begun rolling out security enhanced passports to new applicants from this week. A facility in Pretoria which prints the new passports was officially opened last week by the minister of home affairs, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. The new passports have an embedded RFID chip which stores the owner's biometric information, including personal details, a high-resolution colour photograph and fingerprint information."
Mixed emotions... (Score:2)
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And more jeers to worrying about passports when they have an obscene HIV rate and I'm guessing not that much of a threat from terrorism. Not to say you can't do both, but until they get their HIV epidemic under control I don't know what they're doing spending money to update passports.
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Who gives a crap about HIV? HIV infection can be prevented. The methods for prevention are known. Clinics provide free condoms to anyone. What more would you like them to do?
The real issues are unemployment, poverty, lack of education, racist politicians repeating the injustices of the past and crime.
The HIV infection ratio is 18.1%
The unemployment ratio is 21.7%
Literacy: 86.4%
GDP per capita: 10000 USD
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sf.html [cia.gov]
Re:Mixed emotions... (Score:5, Insightful)
HIV infection can be prevented.
By taking a shower, according to your soon-to-be-President.
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Who gives a crap about HIV? HIV infection can be prevented.
The country, which is losing a significant portion of it's population directly and having to spend lots of money dealing with the death and orphans really should give a crap. That it's so easily preventable is part of what makes the situation ridiculous and is complicating efforts to deal with unemployment and lack of education: 18% of the adult population getting sick and dying isn't very good for the economy, and all the orphans aren't going to get a very good education.
Or they could spend the money on R
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Am I overlooking your suggested solution, because I can't find it in your post?
If 18% of the people who are able to work die as a result of HIV/Aids, there's still 3% unemployed, impoverished, hungry mouths to feed. This is Darwin at work and doing an excellent job. Bleeding heart westerners coming to Africa (yes coming to, not going to) and meddling in affairs which they don't understand is what's causing half of the problems.
When people have 5 kids, below-minimum-wage income and you try to keep all of the
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However the ruling party is less interested in helping it's population at large than it is about maintaining control over that population.
The ANC have seen the result of the raising of education standards in Zimbabwe and the subsequent loss of control by the ZANU-PF ruling party
ZANU-PF have managed to regain that control, largely by brutal oppression coupled with the dismantling of the education s
Re:Mixed emotions... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the "terrorism" threat has more to do with the forgery of passports in SA, which will be used by terrorists abroad. It's been getting a lot easier in recent years to obtain South African passports through illicit means. The UK recently introduced new visa restrictions on South Africans because of this. This move is no doubt an attempt to try and alleviate these concerns, which of course it won't, because of the levels of corruption in the SA Department of Home Affairs.
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Unfortunately, countries don't have the luxury of being able to focus on one thing at a time.
Well then if you can't do both well (and you're not) then prevent HIV effectively and do the security thing poorly.
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and some people in the world die because they don't have food to eat. What are you doing using a computer and the internet?
Not taking money away from efforts to solve world problems for one thing. The RFID tags on the other hand, not so much. I haven't gotten myself elected to govern any country that has those problems either.
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Passport RFID's worst enemy.
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http://www.difrwear.com/products.shtml
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I believe there is some soft of international standard on this.
For the sake of humanity, I hope not.
Fun fact: RFID chips cause cancer [antichips.com].
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That's about implanted RFID chips causing cancer, which sounds quite plausible - putting a foreign object in your body usually isn't a good idea. There's no evidence to suggest that an RFID chip in your passport has any effect on you (except for psychological implications).
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That's about implanted RFID chips causing cancer, which sounds quite plausible - putting a foreign object in your body usually isn't a good idea. There's no evidence to suggest that an RFID chip in your passport has any effect on you (except for psychological implications).
Passive RFID works by getting radio waves powerful enough to power a chip. You think that's a good idea if it's only near your crotch, not in it?
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It's not like the chip attracts the field or anything.
So what are the scanners for and why can't they scan it from a mile away?
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Re:Lots of countries have this (Score:5, Interesting)
Which makes them entirely non-dangerous normally, and less dangerous than the field that scans them when they are being scanned.
I'd stop worrying, especially as the (official) scanners are so short range that you have to take your passport out of your pocket (and away from your genitals) for it to be read, so your genitals would never actually be exposed to the RFID chip's radio broadcast.
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Except that as you said, the chip is passive, and completely unpowered unless it is being scanned, because it gets its power from the scanner. And because of that, they can't transmit with more power than they are getting from the scanning field.
Except that as you said, the chip is passive, and completely unpowered, so the scanner emits a signal enough to power up an integrated fucking circuit and make it transmit back. Microwave ovens should be closed for a reason.
Oh, you thought the chip itself was harmful?
I'd stop worrying, especially as the (official) scanners are so short range that you have to take your passport out of your pocket (and away from your genitals) for it to be read, so your genitals would never actually be (officially) exposed to the RFID chip's radio broadcast.
Fixed that for you.
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Oh, you thought the chip itself was harmful?</quote>
Who mentioned microwaves? RFID isn't a microwave technology, it's a radio technology. Hence the frickin name.
A microwave oven is closed because a standing wave is required to get the power level nee
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Also privacy, financial and freedom implications.
Then there are terrorist possibilities. They will get RFID readers too...
Euphemism? (Score:2)
which stores the owner's biometric information, including personal details
By definition, any biometric information will be personal. We can only assume that "personal details" is actually a euphemism for something specific, although I do not believe that that is appropriate for a passport.
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there are other personal details which aren't biometric, like the postal address, marital status, place of birth and so on.
Jesus Christ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Biometric passports can be counterfeit too. (Score:1)
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Since its data on a chip that can be scanned without a holders knowledge...
Not if you keep it in a metallic sleeve. http://www.rfid-shield.com/products_passport.php [rfid-shield.com]
Corruption (Score:5, Informative)
The UK has just revoked South Africa's short term 'no visa' entry rights because of the sheer number of dodgy passports being issued by the DHA.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&set_id=1&art_id=nw20090224132638974C233056 [iol.co.za]
The problem is not forgery. It's corrupt officials. I fail to see how making the passports 'high tech' is going to stop a bent official from issuing one with phoney details anyway.
This is just (expensive) security theatre.
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I fail to see how making the passports 'high tech' is going to stop a bent official from issuing one with phoney details anyway.
FTA: Siobhan McCarthy, a spokeswoman for the Department of Home Affairs, said that an online fingerprint verification system is used to confirm the identity of the applicant to cut down on the risk of identity fraud at the point of application. All the data is captured during the application, and a single data file is created and sent directly to the printers to limit the risk of internal fraud.
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Those fingerprints are verified against what? They can take blood, semen and iris scans for all it matters. There is no way to verify who those biometrics really belong to.
I can walk into a Home Affairs office, slip someone a wad of cash and get an ID book under the name Wile E Coyote. Once that's through the system, I then go back and get a passport with my biometrics tied to that dodgy name.
Granted, you can't do it twice (they'll have your data from the first passport), but if you'r
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Re:Corruption (Score:4, Interesting)
I can walk into a Home Affairs office, slip someone a wad of cash and get an ID book under the name Wile E Coyote. O
Right. But that's exactly the point. Its a step in the right direction. With biometerics you can't do that anymore once it becomes mandatory and everyone is bio'd. You need unique data. Also there is not much incentive for someone to make any meaningful cash out of selling the biological data (since they can only ever do it once anyway).
:)
on a side note: I quite honestly don't give a toss if someone has my DNA. My biological code should be opensource
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This is just (expensive) security theatre.
MacBeki [guardian.co.uk]
UK are the main reason for this (Score:5, Interesting)
The main reason for this rollout is that the UK recently rescinded the reciprocal visa arrangements for South Africans visiting the UK.
Previously, many SA citizens visited and did business in the UK and no visa was required - They could stay for up to 3 months.
In early Feb this year, the UK govt announced that visas would be required from 3 March onwards due to concerns about the amount of illegitimate SA passports in circulation.
This gave thousands of people who had already bought plane tickets only a few weeks to make the appointment, travel across the country and apply for a visa. If they were unable to do this due to time constraints of financial constraints, they lost the cost of their flights as the airlines pushed back and said that they had sold non-refundable tickets, so it was not their problem.
The SA government really had no choice but to implement these as the UK is a major business partner for many SA companies, and stemming this travel would have been very damaging. And elections are coming up.
Worst off is their AIDS policy (Score:3, Insightful)
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You're hoping the new guy will be better? Really? HAHAHAHAHA
This is the same cunt that during a trial for raping a woman stated that the sex was consensual and he knew that she had aids - but he had a shower afterwards, so he'll be fine.
Do you _really_ think that someone with that retarded an attitude towards HIV ? It'll only get worse after 23/04/09 :(
tracking citizens (Score:2, Insightful)
Doesn't anyone else see this as just a system for tracking ordinary citizens?
Tracking citizens: the hallmark of the totalitarian state.
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Well, not off hand.
To use it to track ordinary citizens, you'd also have to:
1. require all citizens to have an RFID passport
2. require all citizens to CARRY said RFID passport at all times
3. ban the use of RF-blocking wallets or passport cases
4. install a large number of high-powered RFID readers all over the major cities, etc, so you could read the RFID passports covertly as people moved around.
If you do all of that (and vigorously enforce items 1 through 3), then you can use it to track ordinary citiz