Help Florida root out Big Data amendment for licenses, in SB 1150

State sneaks RFID into license regulations in Transport bill, SB 1150
c/o Liberty Underground [CORRECTION: There is no mention of RFID in the amendment.]

UPDATE 2:50PM EDT - Floridians Against Real ID claim concerns over RFID are founded due to broad topology language in Sen. Flores amendment. "RFID does not change the width of the license," says Paul Henry, Executive Director of  Floridians Against Real ID, whose efforts are to rule out chances Florida licenses will become Real ID compliant.  Florida's current license regulations favor Real ID, which may include RFID.

BTC-  The SB 1150 amendment reads as follows:

Page 1 of 2 3/30/2011

322.145 Electronic authentication of licenses.—

(1) Any driver’s license issued on or after July 1, 2012, must contain a means of electronic authentication, which conforms to a recognized standard for such authentication, such as public key infrastructure, symmetric key algorithms, security tokens, mediametrics, or biometrics. Electronic authentication capabilities must not interfere with or change the driver’s license format or topology.

It reads as if it were an online authentication structure like NSTIC, but applied to a drivers license. Maybe because that's the idea, to provide a voluntary online authentication option to drivers licenses.

(2) The department shall provide, at the applicant’s option and at the time a license is issued, a security token that can be electronically authenticated through a personal computer. The token must also conform to one of the standards provided subsection (1).

Could this be a new legislative campaign to bring licenses into the digital infrastructure, so identity grabs can go to one stop swapping?   What is not clear is whether the authentication systems will be secure, who has access to the information, where license data lands after authentication and all of the same old pesky big database queries.  [Not that this has anything to do with this Florida amendment possibly being hatched in concept at the NY Big Data conference... Of course, we can't prove that!]  All the same "who governs data" is becoming the new question, rather than who owns data.  Let's just pray it isn't IBM.

ACTION TO FOLLOW c/o Floridians Against Real ID

"Please call or email the amendment's sponsor, Sen. Anitere Flores (R-Miami), who is the Republican "Whip" at 850-487-5130 (Tallahassee) or 305-270-6550 (Miami). Her email address is flores.anitere.web@flsenate.gov . 

Please ask every one you know to call or email on this important subject.

Tell her it is unacceptable to add RFID chips or any electronic devices to our Florida driver's licenses, especially through the backdoor via an amendment. The "party of small government" is growing the government with bills such as these, which will bring additional costs and less liberty. RFID chips can be easily read and hacked."

Thank you,

Paul Henry, Executive Director -Floridians Against REAL ID