Airport To Tag Passengers With RFID 262
denebian devil writes "A new technology is to be trialled in Debrecen Airport in Hungary that will involve tagging all passengers with high-powered RFID tags. From the Register article: 'People will be told to wear radio tags round their necks when they get to the airport. The tag would notify a computer system of their identity and whereabouts. The system would then track their activities in the airport using a network of high definition cameras. "[The tags] have got a long range, of 10m to 20m," said Dr. Paul Brennan of University College London's antennas and radar group which developed the tags, "and the system has been designed so the tag can be located to within a meter, and it can locate thousands of tags in one area at a given time."' The system is being touted for 'Improving airport efficiency, security and passenger flow by enhanced passenger monitoring.' BBC is also reporting this story, and brings up such hurdles to the project as 'finding a way of ensuring the tags cannot be switched between passengers or removed without notification.' As for any mention of the 'hurdle' of people's rights, the article vaguely and briefly states that 'The issue of infringement of civil liberties will also be key,' but doesn't bother to go into any pesky details."
Dog collars. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dog collars. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Dog collars. (Score:5, Funny)
Airport Security: "Those are all the passangers and people in the airport."
FBI: "Well how do we find the terrorist in that sea of dots?"
Airport Security: "Well, they will be the . . . suspicious . . . dots."
FBI: "Whats a suspicious dot look like?"
Airport Security: "You'll have to talk to my supervisor. I just watch the dots."
Re:Dog collars. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The only way in which such a system could work would be if it is possible to accuratly track people as well as tags. Thus could identify an untagged person in the secure area,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
My suspicion is that they would want to watch the dots to determine how to most efficiently move people through the airport or otherwise study their movements. Were this the case, however, the tags would be anonymous. Either way, it's a problem that is not most effectively solved by RFID tags.
Realistically, what is this going to do for any purpose whatsoever? It saddens me to know that air travel is going to be a fairly annoying if not downright humiliating process for a long time to come....
Re:Dog collars. (Score:4, Insightful)
Terrorists Win!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Or am I thinking lightsabres?
Yeah, real funny... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Airport Security: "Sure. Here you go [quest3d.com]."
"Security" is a misnomer (Score:4, Insightful)
The word is enforcement. Better still, control. These measures are all designed to control the population, not to ensure its security.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Luggage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Luggage? (Score:5, Funny)
Thats the idea. Passengers and luggage will be merged. You bring along an extra suitcase and they seal you inside at the check in counter.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
BS - luggage is owned by "somebody" and that "somebody" has a right to privacy.
Luggage tracking on airports is pretty sophisticated, luggage tag numbers are linked to a ticket record, luggage can be immediatley linked to an individual with a wireless barcode scanner.
And - if spooks want to search (and bug) the luggage of a human, all they need to do to go to TSA and have them to pull the luggage. You can bet that this is happening.
So
Re: (Score:3)
and yet they still manage to lose mine...
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
That's not a priority. Suspicious-looking suitcases don't blow up planes.
Oh, wait...
Anyway it wont happen, because in Soviet Russia, luggage tags track YOU!
Wouldn't this be a little late? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wouldn't this be a little late? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be interested to know exactly what problem tagging everyone is supposed to solve. Airports are already compartmentalised and people must show their boarding card / passport to move from one area to the next . So what difference would an RFID tag make? It might actually weaken the system since humans will be less attentive than they are now. I suppose it might have marginal benefits such as when you're trying to locate a person exactly but it hardly appears to warrant the expense of the system.
Besides, a bad person who is intent on blowing themselves up on the plane makes every effort to abide by the same rules as other passengers. How does this system do anything at all to detect them? And terrorists who just want to kill a bunch of people at the airport can do that easily too - there are enough densely packed queues in airports to easily facilitate mass murder whether the terrorist has a valid passport, ticket, id or RFID or not. I'm surprised that it doesn't happen all the time. The queues are out the door on some days of the year.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, I believe one of the side benefits mentioned was being able to find lost kids. Think of the children!!
Re:Wouldn't this be a little late? Sales, man SALE (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Don't kill off the SALES man! This is the fine work of government to RFP for bids. Lockheed can win global contracts and then farm them out to their privileged few subcontractors.
2. I suspect the anti-tamper feature will incorporate some sort of stun mechanism.
3. Imagine being pulled into an on-site interrogation room and being asked:
- WHY did you visit the bathrooms 13 times. WHY THOSE 13?
- WHY did you hug THOSE two people? Do you know they hugged 3 others elsewhere in the airport?
4. Maybe they sho
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The cynical answer would be, the problem of people who think they are free citizens.
Is it just me, or has commercial air travel hit the floor of tolerability already?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not supposed to solve any particular problem. It's just one more aspect of the elaborate security theater that the public is willing to go along with because it makes them feel safer, somehow. I'd be willing to bet that most people don't think about it that hard, they just comply.
In reality, this sort of thing won't do a solitary damned thing to increase anyone's safety. All it will do is turn them into compl
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
not the goal.. (Score:2)
everyone rationalizes it as 'shit'
blow a $300 to $600 million plane, 300 people, and everyone goes HOLY SHIT that could have been me- and it is beyond my control- and flying drops off A WHOLE LOT over the next few months--....
it's a BIG difference
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are airport operators really so stupid that they need to pay someone huge sums of money to tell them when there's a long queue of people at security? Are they blind?
Well, it does say "Tag" (Score:5, Funny)
Just count yourself fortunate that they've given up on their branding idea...
Re: (Score:2)
[Whiney Homer voice] Does it go in the butt?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yes, and as you can see that the terrorist loitered a lot near the toilets. Of course, quite a few people do that as well while waiting for relatives to finish their business, so we can't use that as a reliable indicator of evil intent. But I'm sure, in time, we'll find something that will show us for certain. Please, we need more funds for research."
Re: (Score:2)
Remember how experts have been saying racial profiling is a bad idea? Well this is one of the alternatives, tracking your movements for suspicious behavior.
Relying on technology is easier than training lots and lots of people in how to recognize suspicious/anxious behavior
the script on the monitoring side (Score:3, Funny)
if ($country_trust_level{$RFID->citizenship} < 5) {
run_1984($RFID);
}
would you trust someone from Andorra? (Score:4, Funny)
Andorra? Their twitchy antennea and their smurfy complexion always make me so nervous.
Information overload (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
A lot of time has passed since 9/11/01, and as a consequence the facts are getting hazier and hazier. FYI, they (CIA, FBI) were tracking the 9/11/01 bombers and didn't help worth a sh*t!
Security? (Score:4, Insightful)
To me, this sounds like an efficiency study that they tacked on the word "Security" in order to sidestep the civil liberties issues. We've seen this done plenty of times before, but I'm amazed at how transparent it is here.
Re:Security? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with these techniques, of course, is the normalizing effect. Everybody that does something weird, or out of the ordinary gets observed. Little charming quirks in your personality, like sitting down on the floor in some empty space instead of sitting in on a bench in the crowded waiting area, will instantly arouse suspicion. Do what everybody does, or you'll be suspected, watched and usually, gently prodded back in line. All human societies have an inherent normalizing effect. In this case the reason isn't just security, improving efficiency usually means weeding out the weirdos as well. And all technology does in these cases is amplify that effect. Just think of the whole slashdot moderation thing, it works beautifully, but it also makes the groupthink a lot stronger (and the slashdot crowd is on the whole a relatively intelligent and critical subset of society).
Of course any real terrorist will make sure that he (or she) acts as normal as possible. In fact with the amount of attention being paid to air travel, terrorists are probably just looking for less secured areas (like the the Spanish train bombings or the London subway).
Re: (Score:2)
Even if such a system could flag "too normal" as well as "too abnormal" the number of false positives would render it worst than useless for actual security.
Re: (Score:2)
Or spending a lot of time looking at the architechture?
I do this a lot in any place that I happen to be, including airports.
It may not be normal for the majority of people, but it is normal for me (and a small group of other people).
I don't feel safer if security is spending it's time constantly challenging me for appr
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the classic geek mistake when examining security - to assume it's a logic puzzle or chessboard. In the real world, if you can place an obstacle in your adversary's path, you gain an advantage. Of course he will probably go around it, but it gives him an additional burden and an additional chance to make a mistake.
There are probably thousands of variations on an airplane terrorist attack,
Re: (Score:2)
Does anyone here at slashdot work for a living? If so, you've no doubt encountered access badges at some place that you've worked. You walk up to the door, swipe your badge by the sensor and the door unlocks. You think they don't keep records of that? My employer also has a lot of vid
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People wouldn't be treated like sheep, if they didn't behave like sheep.
A matter of trust (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A matter of trust (Score:4, Interesting)
But...but...I'm still alive!
Tell that to the court! We have solid evidence that you were involved in the bombing; your tag was found at the explosion site!
My tag? My tag! Where's my tag? It's been stolen!
Enough of that! We have it on record: you were in the middle of the explosion when it happened. You can object all you want, but everybody knows that computers don't make mistakes. You're guilty and you know it!
10m to 20m? (Score:3, Insightful)
If their maximum range is only 20 meters, I would certainly hope they can be accurate to within 1.
</pedant>
You should've seen ver 1.0 (Score:2)
High Powered RFID tags? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID#Active [wikipedia.org]
Before everyone starts jumping the gun (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Look, I'm privacy conscious as the next slashdotter, but this is just simply not an issue here. Who would trust a security system whose creator doesn't even know that dirty bombs doesn't exist in reality.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But, for what it's worth, Courts have the special circumstances rule that lowers a U.S. citizen's enjoyment of Fourth Amendment rights under conditions where the risk of not searching is so much higher that "reasonable" is lower. For example, if I told you that one out of 1,000 people in a room had a bomb, would it be unreasonable to search everybo
Re: (Score:2)
KeS
Re: (Score:2)
If such a system was viable you'd expect major supermarkets to to looking at it. If their checkouts are too busy customers can just leave, with goods having to be either reshelved or disposed of...
Sheeple gave up their liberties long ago (Score:3, Insightful)
+Godwinned?
Happened loonnnng before... (Score:2)
Story sumbitted two days ago (Score:2)
Re:Story sumbitted two days ago (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Not at all. It's a perfectly cromulent grievance.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. (Way off-topic...)I write "novel quality" fanfiction as a hobby (see the link next to my name), and I find it annoying when the grammar-checker in MS Word citicizes text in quotations (dialogue). One would think that there would be an option to exclude text found in quotes to avoid this, but apparantly I must be the only one that doesn't type exclusively in Notepad.
How does this improve security? (Score:3, Insightful)
Worse, this system is actually going to make matters worse: it costs money, people need to be watching the system, and people need to investigate whateven "suspicious behavior" occurs. All this takes resources away from more effective measures.
At least, that's how I see it. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe this system is dumb. Or maybe it actually rather cleverly serves a purpose _other_ than security (e.g. putting money in the pockets of the designers).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
At least, that's how I see it. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe this system is dumb. Or maybe it actually rather cleverly serves a purpose _other_ than security (e.g. putting money in the pockets of the designers).
If the latter, were it to provably fail they can
Terrorists rare, tourists common. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Not like the shady photos last time,
Without a datestamp and of such poor quality they could have been shot anywhere at any time.
this makes much better TV afterwards. People will feel so relieved.
Assuming that this system dosn't suffer a malfunction co-incident with a terrorist attack
Evaluation (Score:3, Funny)
We proudly present the results of the evaluation of the ultra airport security system. During the evaluation, no acts of terrorism were committed in this airport. Clearly, the system is a great success and well worth the investment. We recommend the system to be kept in place and be installed in other airports and public places, as well.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Lisa: By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Hmm. How does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work. (pause) It's just a stupid rock!
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: B
Up Next... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Alternative RFID (Score:2)
Or how about RFID clothing. Passengers normally wear clothes, which, lets face it, could be composed of explosive or accelerant fibres, or stuff that decomposes in to toxic gas after 3 hours. So, build a load of changing rooms at each airport and exchange the passengers clothes for a type approved travel suit,
Makes it easier for the terrorist (Score:2)
Step 1: tag 'em (Score:2)
oh those pesky little details... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because the people setting all this up consider "civil liberties" to be one of those "pesky details".
Civil Liberties is not a set of rules that inconvenience you, that you should work to find ways around. If you are trying to find ways around laws designed to protect the public from abuse, you are not assulting the law, you are assulting the principles and ideals that the law was made for, and endangering those people whom those laws are designed to protect.
The tag isn't so bad... (Score:2)
What I really hate is how they always have to shoot you with a tranquilizer dart, first.
The good news is that this will allow us to learn about the migratory patterns of airline passengers, so maybe we can get ahead of them and into position to photograph their mating rituals.
What rights? (Score:2)
The airport isn't yours. When you walk into an airport you have to agree to abide by the rules established by the owner of the airport. You have no right to demand that they be changed. Feel free to establish rules in your own house, but when you enter someone else's property you abide by their rules.
You have no more right to avoid the airport's tracking requirements than you'd have to demand free flights or free meals at their overpriced sandwich bars.
I'm sorry you may not like
Re: (Score:2)
Hooray for Academia's Security Pork Barrel! (Score:2)
2) Devise some bizarre, convoluted and obscure way it could be applied to "security" - extreme hand waving is obligatory.
3) Stand by while it starts to rain money on your research group courtesy of gullible government departments, research councils and investors.
4) Don't miss any sleep worrying about exactly what terrorist attack scenario would be averted by this technology. Or whether you are, in fact, plugging a security hole that doesn't exist.
5) Next month, when the cause de jour
At this point (Score:3, Interesting)
How can they afford this? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Fact is, air travel is essential to US businesses because of distances between locations. Travel by train or car will take forever, and you can't afford that. A tiniest private airplane will cost you a million dollars, and it
the mark (Score:2)
It seems like you could easily enough implant these just beneath the skin of say the forehead, or the wrist.
Re: (Score:2)
From now on, I'm no longer flying.
Re:Outright refusal to be tagged! (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of collars sounds horrible, but after people realize that the consequences of "their choise" to not wear one are much worse, people will start to accept them.
Stay citizen, come here citizen, fetch your papers citizen. Good citizen, here is a boarding pass for you.( Pats citizen on head )
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In that sense, as long as I can fly a Cessna full of gas into the passenger cabin of a airliner that is about to take off, I don't think we need to worry about exactly where people are inside the airport.
Re: (Score:2)
Or just destroy it - by exposing said policemen on a giant billboard and by destroying any and all tags with an emp (you dont think that is possible? The Chaos Computer Club made one out of a disposable camera).
If the goverment wants to play dirty, we can play dirty too.
Re:The 'hurdle' of people's rights? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm no fucking not-a-suicide-pact posner [amazon.com] but in my opinion when the 'monitoring' goes from the guys with the donuts to the billion-dollar government contracts for systemic automated surveillance the government has already overstepped the bounds of what constitutes a reasonable search and is in violation of the 4th Amendement.
Re: (Score:2)
Typically from a small list of options presented by the untrustworthy.
and forget to worry about whether they *make* them safer
Or at least make them no less safe.
Re: (Score:2)
If that were the case, I suspect that the number of heart attacks among cell phone users would rise dramatically.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much everything you describe has already happened. fully.
Except that
Re:What about its benefits? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Being able to locate passengers in areas that are off-limits
Sounds good on the surface, in reality it's really fucking stupid and it's obvious that you have no idea of how security works. Where I work we wear keycard badges and have access controlled areas (labs, machine rooms, etc) that the badges will let you into. If you are in one of these areas and you see someone who doesn't have a badge and who you don't know you're supposed to ask who they are and what they are doing there, I'm certainly going to do this if I find someone in my machine room and I don't know who they are and they don't have a badge. At the airport you do the same thing, you restrict access to certain areas and you require anyone who works in those areas to wear a badge. Anyone who doesn't have a badge isn't supposed to be there. Passengers shouldn't ever be able to get into areas that are off-limits and placing guards at the access points of the restricted areas and having a few that roam the restricted areas checking up on things is a cheaper, less intrusive and more effective than tagging everyone and implemeting ubiquitous surveillance. Also all someone has to do is take this tag off, in which case your magical locating system doesn't work any more, unless of course you're advocating shoving them up everyone's ass or something.
2. In the event of a catastrophy sic being able to find passengers that are missing or potentially injured and being able to get there quicker to potentially save a life.
Sounds nice, but it's blatantly stupid. What kind of catastrophe are we talking about here? Airports are limited areas, if something bad happens finding people is going to be pretty easy, unless of course it's a WTC style collapse, in which case all that those RFID tags are going to tell you is that you've got a lot of corpses in the rubble. Also if something really bad happens any conscientious group of rescuers is going to have to check the whole area anyways in case someone's RFID tag was damaged or torn from their body.
3. Locating lost children
I'm not wearing a dog collar so that some breeder can find his fucking kids. Keep an eye on your fucking brat and stop trying to restrict my freedom or take away my dignity by saying "it's for the children".
4. Making sure the amount of passengers that are checked in / checked out / boarded at any time eliminating any discrepancies should a problem arise.
We already have this. Well we don't in the US, but that's because our airport security is shit, despite TSA's claims to the contrary. But if you fly through London Heathrow or Munich or Frankfurt or Schiphol your bags don't get on the plane unless you're on the plane. If you are late boarding the plane, and I've had a couple of close calls at LHR, your bags will end up staying at the airport and will go out on the next flight. This is the biggest security threat we have, bombs in luggage, not knowing where everyone is at all times. Implementing positive bag matching would do a lot more to improve secuirty than requirinhg everyone to wear an RFID dog collar.
5) From a marketer's perspective - selling the data to the shops / food stands inside. Selling the data to advertisers and designating high value areas where there is the most traffic.
Marketers are shit and should be rounded up and sent to death camps, anyone who advocates making me wear an RFID dog collar so it's easier for marketers to track me and get data about me without my consent should be gut shot and left to die on a lonely stretch of desert highway on a hot summer's day.
6. If there is a problem, checking that passenger's last known whereabouts to see what they were doing from the moment they checked in. If they met with airport staff posing as an insider prior to boarding etc. With that information, it could lead to the quicker arrest and breakup of other terrorist cells.
Great, ex post facto law enforce