Not Letting Chips Follow Where They May

Businesses believe it will revolutionize the way items are tracked from warehouse to checkout. Even the Department of Defense manages supply lines with the technology.

But should government use this radio-frequency identification to track people too?

Some California lawmakers don't think so and have supported a bill to ban certain uses. Unlike driver's licenses and bank cards with magnetic stripes, cards with radio-frequency technology would not have to be individually swiped through a machine to release their information. They could be read from afar -- without the owner's knowledge.

That's why Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) thinks the technology should never be used for forms of identity that everybody must carry. His bill, SB 682, would ban state and local governments from including the "contact-less" electronic tags in driver's licenses, student ID cards, health insurance cards and public library cards.

The legislation is the first of its kind in the nation and runs counter to a U.S. State Department plan to put such electronic tags in passports beginning this year. Privacy rights activists back the legislation, saying they can foresee the technology's use by thieves to steal people's identities, by terrorists to target Americans, by stalkers to track victims or by the government to take names at political events.

Other supporters of the bill include AARP, Consumer Federation of California and the California Alliance Against Domestic Violence.

The technology consists of a computer chip with an antenna energized by radio waves emitted by a reader. The chips can be scanned from several feet away and through a wallet or purse, depending upon the strength of the electronic reader, which can be purchased for a few hundred dollars.

"The government shouldn't be forcing people to carry documents that are going to broadcast their identity," said Nicole Ozer, technology policy director with the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, a sponsor of Simitian's bill.