UK Drivers’ Personal Details Handed to EU

The personal details of nearly 40m UK motorists will be open to abuse when they are “automatically” trawled by foreign states, an internal police report has admitted.

Sensitive information such as a driver’s address, motoring convictions and medical history will be exposed to routine sifting by police, traffic wardens and other officials across Europe when European Union data-sharing plans come into force in 2011.'

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Mileage Tax 'Would Track Where Drivers Go'

A New York Times article about the different test studies being conducted as a precursor to the introduction of a CO2 or mileage tax admits that cars will contain tracking devices that will record where motorists have been.

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Radio Chip Coming Soon to Your Driver's License?

Privacy advocates are issuing warnings about a new radio chip plan that ultimately could provide electronic identification for every adult in the U.S. and allow agents to compile attendance lists at anti-government rallies simply by walking through the assembly.

The proposal, which has earned the support of Janet Napolitano, the newly chosen chief of the Department of Homeland Security, would embed radio chips in driver's licenses, or "enhanced driver's licenses."

"Enhanced driver's licenses give confidence that the person holding the card is the person who is supposed to be holding the card, and it's less elaborate than REAL ID," Napolitano said in a Washington Times report.

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Passport RFIDs Cloned Wholesale By $250 eBay Auction Spree

Using inexpensive off-the-shelf components, an information security expert has built a mobile platform that can clone large numbers of the unique electronic identifiers used in US passport cards and next generation drivers licenses.

The $250 proof-of-concept device - which researcher Chris Paget built in his spare time - operates out of his vehicle and contains everything needed to sniff and then clone RFID, or radio frequency identification, tags. During a recent 20-minute drive in downtown San Francisco, it successfully copied the RFID tags of two passport cards without the knowledge of their owners.

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And you trust your government to handle your data safely??