banana

This article from the 'Wall Street Journal' describes how the Chinese
government plans to replace paper ID cards with electronic ones. It does
not say that the cards will be radio-frequency identifiable (RFID), but
it seems very likely that they will be. Certainly, one of the companies
involved, namely the Israeli firm On Track Innovations, specialises in
'contactless cards'. Its website is at: <http://www.oti.co.il>.
See in particular: <http://www.oti.co.il/prodacts_fr_left.htm>.

From the 'Wall Street Journal'. I got it from Cryptome:

<http://cryptome.org/cn-1bn-ids.htm>.

***BEGIN ARTICLE***

Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2003

China Begins Effort to Replace Citizen IDs With Digital Cards
By Andrew Batson

Dow Jones Newswires

BEIJING -- China is about to embark on the world's biggest experiment in
the use of electronic identification cards, which next year will begin
to replace the paper national ID cards carried by 960 million Chinese
citizens.

The core of the new ID cards is an embedded microchip storing an
individual's personal information, which can be read electronically and
checked against databases kept by China's security authorities.
Residents of most major cities also will carry other chip-based cards
that control access to social services.

This massive transformation of how the government interacts with its
citizens is proceeding nearly unnoticed by anyone outside a small circle
of bureaucrats and industry executives. There has been little public
debate on the costs and benefits of the programs, and China's state-run
media have been mostly silent on the issue.

In their public justification for the new cards, Chinese officials have
focused on how the cards can help solve a major law-enforcement problem:
Paper IDs can be forged easily, contributing to fraud and financial
crime. The plastic cards should be much harder to counterfeit.

"There is a genuine need for modernization of the ID system to enable
the police to fight genuine crime," said Peter Humphrey, China country
manager for Kroll Inc., a New York company specializing in security and
risk assessment.

The amount of information to be stored on the new personal-
identification cards is dwarfed by the data on social-security cards
coming into use in many of China's big cities. These conveniently link
account information for all the government services that a person
receives, including medical care, welfare benefits and employment
assistance.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Security plays down privacy concerns,
saying encryption systems on the cards will prevent unwanted crossover,
such as an employer getting information about an employee's medical
history. The ministry will control the huge databases being built to
store the detailed records.

"We can use this information to better research macro-level policies"
such as changes in benefits or the retirement age, said Wang Dongyan,
who heads the ministry's information-systems department. He plans
eventually to link the social-security databases to those of other
ministries, such as security and education.

By the end of 2002, about 20 major cities had launched social-security-
card programs, and more than 10 million cards were in circulation, some
of them supplied by foreign card makers, including Schlumberger Ltd., of
New York. But the Ministry of Public Security is keeping contracts for
the ID card mostly limited to a tight group of domestic companies.

Exceptions are French defense and electronics group Thales SA and
Israeli company On Track Innovations Ltd., which have said they are
supplying technology to the ID-card project. Neither responded to
requests to discuss their involvement in the project.

According to a Chinese industry executive, the security ministry likely
will award its remaining contracts this year, allowing trials to begin
in 2004, with large-scale issuance by 2005. As many as 800 million of
the cards could be in use by 2006, some reports predict.

China's program has added to the international debate on so-called smart
ID cards, which have met opposition from privacy advocates in the U.S.,
the U.K. and Australia while being accepted by some European and Asian
countries. Critics say such a system reduces the confidentiality of
personal data and creates the potential for misuse by the government or
companies that have access to the information.

China's ID-card law doesn't have any provisions controlling how the
government or companies can gather and use personal information.

Song Gongde, a legal expert at the National School of Administration in
Beijing, says he was encouraged by a provision in China's ID law, passed
in June, that strictly limits the kinds of data that can be put on the
ID card, including name, birth date and the 18-digit citizen ID number.
But the law doesn't give citizens the right to see or correct their
personal information, whether it is stored on a card or elsewhere.

The introduction of the cards will be accompanied by a major upgrade of
the security ministry's databases and computer systems, ****ysts say.
China's security forces, which investigate political misdeeds as well as
other crimes, have been enthusiastic users of technology -- for
instance, to monitor Internet and e-mail traffic -- and face few curbs
on how they can use such technology.

"The absence of a counterweight is worrying, especially in China where
the legal system is very deficient," said Nicolas Becquelin, the
research director for rights group Human Rights in China.

-- From Dow Jones Newswires

***END ARTICLE***

--
banana "You know what I hate the most about you Rowntree? The way
you give Coca-Cola to your s***, your best teddy-bear to
Oxfam, then expect us to lick your cold frigid fingers for the
rest of your cold frigid life." (Mick Travis, 'If...', 1968)

james hammerton

banana <banana@REMOVE_THIS.borve.demon.co.uk> writes:

Thanks for the info!


Note the "should be" bit. Even if true, ask yourself this -- how is
the Chinese govt going to verify the ID of the people who these cards
will be issued to...

Aside from that, there is no such thing as an unforgeable card...


But what about govt officials getting info about stuff entirely
unrelated to their work?


Ha! A cracker's paradise... A huge resource for those willing to pay
the money required to hack into the database or to intimidate or bribe
officials to provide access or requested info...

[snip]


I.e. there's nothing to stop abuse. Nothing whatsoever.


I.e. there's nothing to stop abuse. Nothing whatsoever.

Not that Britain does much better, though it does do a bit better...


They'll ****ing well need it to issue 960 million cards, plus
associated records, plus maintaining said records/cards and making
allowances for births, deaths and migration.


No doubt...

James

--
James Hammerton, http://jameshammerton.blogspot.com/
http://www.let.rug.nl/~james
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~james (mirrored at above site)
Contributor to http://www.magnacartaplus.org/

banana

In article <m3oeyrzssw.fsf@client112-26.kabela.oprit.rug.nl>, James
Hammerton <jameshammerton@yahoo.co.uk> writes

<snip>


Hi James, I think you ask absolutely the right question.

There could be biometric info recorded on the card, checkable in real
time against biometric info easily taken from the holder when they show
the card; or, given sufficient miniaturisation, the holder could be
physically chipped in a given place on their body [1], and the death
penalty could be introduced for removing a chip, aiding or requesting
the removal of a chip, conspiring to remove a chip, or withholding
information about any of the above crimes.


(1) Tagging, although not necessarily with electronic tags, is already
compulsory for many farm animals. For example, in the UK, all cattle
must be tagged with ear-tags bearing the symbol of a crown. I'm not
joking, see
<http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/tracing/tagging/tag_index.htm>.

An extract therefrom:

***BEGIN***
Electronic Identification

Electronic tagging of cattle is not compulsory within the European
Union, nor in this country. This is still a developing technology which
is not yet fully standardised. The European Commission is undertaking a
field trial of various electronic devices. Their preference is towards
devices which can be implanted in the animal or given as a bolus. The
Government believes it is sensible to await the outcome of this trial
and see what subsequent European rules might be agreed for all Member
States before requiring electronic identification. Defra is reviewing
(with devolved Agriculture Departments) the interim UK policy on
electronic identification for livestock.

There is nothing in the Government’s rules which prevents farmers from
using electronic identification if they wish: that is a commercial
decision for them to make. And in the longer run, it seems likely that
electronic identification of cattle will become widespread, and probably
compulsory.
**END***

There's that tone of 'this is bound to happen' again :-) (Maybe we
should bestow annual 'name and shame' awards for this?) A very naive
reader might forget that it's the government that makes things
compulsory - OK, on behalf of its masters, but still.

Moreover, there is already some standardisation regarding electronic
identification - and there is also a powerful push, supported by
governments and big global corporations, towards advancing
standardisation. See, on the electronic tagging of animals, standards
ISO 11784 and ISO 11785. On RFID more generally see various standards
being considered in the ISO 18000 1-6 range, also the EPC backed by the
UCC which gave the world the barcode. See also the GCI at:
<http://www.globalcommerceinitiative.org>).

--
banana "You know what I hate the most about you Rowntree? The way
you give Coca-Cola to your s***, your best teddy-bear to
Oxfam, then expect us to lick your cold frigid fingers for the
rest of your cold frigid life." (Mick Travis, 'If...', 1968)

amazure

Maybe they are already :-)

libertystrikesback

:-(