Smartcard: A dumb move

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Rachel Alexander

The Clinton administration hopes to make Smartcards the sole method for dealing with the federal government, from obtaining Social Security benefits to using the Post Office. They would also like to see them used to track a person's medical records from birth until death.

Smartcards are already becoming commonplace in the private arena. Many companies offer Smartcards for digital phones, Pay TV, transportation and prepaid telephone cards. Last year, 10 million Smartcards were used in North America, 9 percent as ID cards.

Smartcards have been compared to tiny computers, containing their own operating systems, microprocessors, temporary memory and file storage memory.

They can easily store a picture and up to 100 pages of information, and that capacity is increasing as technology advances.

It is predicted that Smartcards will eventually replace cash; however, this raises many privacy issues. With cash transactions, your purchases are essentially anonymous. With Smartcard, each transaction leaves a record. Every transaction you make throughout the day is recorded, from when you step onto the bus in the morning to the movie you see that evening. Whoever owned the card could potentially trace your steps any day of the week.

Smartcards allow their producers to determine to a startling degree of preciseness what your interests are, and bombard you with advertising tailored to those interests. Next, they can sell your "profile" to other companies, who will also bombard you with their advertising and telemarketing.

Smartcard companies are already advertising for sale the extensive customer profiles they are collecting.

Government-issued Smartcards pose even more serious privacy problems. If President Clinton succeeds in putting everyone's private medical records on Smartcards, there will be no way to keep health problems secret. With the increasing linkage of employers to a centralized health-care plan, employers will know your entire medical history: such as whether you have AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases or have had plastic surgery.

Is it really a good idea carrying around a tiny computer full of information containing your money and the most important and personal details of your life, and entrusting this information several times a day to complete strangers?

Privacy International says no:

"The existence of a person's life story in a hundred unrelated databases is one important condition that protects privacy. The bringing together of these separate information centers creates a major privacy vulnerability."

Smartcards are susceptible to hackers. MasterCard International, which is beginning to replace its current magnetic stripe cards with Smartcards, had some hackers attempt to crack its code last year, and they succeeded, much to MasterCard's embarrassment. Smartcards offered by Pay TV have also been hacked into.

Currently, efforts in the U.S. Congress, led by Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), are being made to implement a national ID card for American workers, in order to deter the illegal immigration of Mexicans. The U.S. Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 already provides for the conversion of state drivers' licenses into national ID cards. Creating a national database on people in order to identify them racially is eerily similar to the Nazi's use of personal information systems in the 1930s in order to target Jewish people.

News reports have also suggested that national ID cards were used to distinguish people's tribal associations in the Rwanda massacres.

Stanton McCandlish of the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that every year people in the IRS get fired and even prosecuted for selling Americans' tax records to the highest bidder. This risk would increase exponentially with the creation of a national database of information, accessed by thousands of employees.

Even more intrusive than Smartcard is the implant chip, currently being developed by Hughes Aircraft (now Raytheon) for its employees. Imagine the control that could be exerted over someone who had one of these chips embedded in their skin.

The scanner in the break room senses you're not supposed to be there? No problem, nothing that a slight electrical shock to the system can't resolve!

Implementing a national ID card presents more than just privacy problems. The Social Security Administration admits that setting up a national ID system would cost at least $3 to $6 billion. Considering the IRS's high margin of error, do we really want to entrust our cash and our personal information to another government agency, and pay heavily for it? A 1991 Consumers Union study of credit reports handled by three major credit bureaus found that 48 percent of the reports contained inaccurate information, and almost one-fifth of the reports contained an error that would affect a consumer's eligibility for credit. Does anyone actually expect a large government bureaucracy to manage our money and personal details any better?

"Convenience" does not make up for the drastic privacy invasions Smartcards bring with them. Don't give up your rights for a greedy exploitation of technology.

Rachel Alexander is a law student. Her column, Common Sense, appears on alternate Tuesdays and can be reached via e-mail at Rachel.Alexandar@wildcat.arizona.edu.