- The British government is preparing to test new high-tech
license plates containing microchips capable of transmitting unique vehicle
identification numbers and other data to readers more than 300 feet away.
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- Officials in the United States say they'll be closely
watching the British trial as they contemplate initiating their own tests
of the plates, which incorporate radio frequency identification, or RFID,
tags to make vehicles electronically trackable.
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- "We definitely have an interest in testing an RFID-tagged
license plate," said Jerry Dike, chairman of the American Association
of Motor Vehicle Administrators and director of the Vehicle Titles and
Registration Division of the Texas Department of Transportation.
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- So-called "active" RFID tags, like the one
in the e-Plate made by the U.K. firm Hills Numberplates, have built-in
batteries, allowing them to broadcast data much farther than the small
passive tags used to track inventory at retail stores.
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- Active RFID is already enjoying limited use on U.S. roadways.
Under a new program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is issuing
RFID tags to foreign freight and passenger vehicles as they enter the country.
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- The technology is also used in electronic toll-collection
systems in the United States to automatically charge participating drivers
as they breeze past unstaffed toll booths. In the San Francisco Bay Area,
FasTrak toll transponders are also polled at readers away from the toll
booths, to determine how quickly traffic is moving through particular areas.
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- Proponents argue that making such RFID tags mandatory
and ubiquitous is a logical move to counter the threat of terrorists using
the roadways, and that it will scoop up insurance and registration scofflaws
in the process.
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- "We see tremendous advantages to the (e-Plate) for
everything from verifying registration and insurance to Amber (missing
child) Alerts," said Dike. But because the RFID plates can cost 10
times more than ordinary plates, they will need strong support from governors
and state legislatures before they are tested in the states, Dike added.
"It will be several years before Texas will be able to test the e-Plate"
on any of the 4 million to 4.5 million cars it registers annually.
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- Privacy advocates are less enthusiastic about the technology.
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- "It's too easy for (RFID license plates) to become
a back-door surveillance tool," said Jim Harper, director of information
studies at libertarian think tank the Cato Institute and a member of the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory
Committee.
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- Civil libertarians don't object to an RFID automatic
toll-collection system that "anonymizes" vehicles in databases
once a transaction is completed. But they doubt the government -- given
its thirst for intelligence -- will use such privacy-protection measures.
From a law-enforcement perspective, "there is no reason to have privacy
for anything," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.
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- Active RFID is a huge improvement over cameras that use
optical character recognition to read license plates and are accurate only
75 to 90 percent of the time, said Michael Wolf, president of the EVI Management
Group.
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- The U.K. Department for Transport gave the official go-ahead
for the microchipped number plates (as they are called in the United Kingdom)
last week, and the trial is expected to begin later this year. The government
has been tight-lipped about the details. One of the vendors bidding to
participate in the trial said it would start with smartplates added to
some police cars.
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- The point of the test is to see whether microchips will
make number plates harder to tamper with and clone, said U.K. Department
for Transport spokesman Ian Weller-Skitt.
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- Many commuters use counterfeit plates to avoid the London
congestion charge, a fee imposed on passenger vehicles entering central
London during busy hours.
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