• Agency wants Social Security numbers removed from Medicare IDs

    Worried about identity theft, the Social Security Administration urged Medicare officials to remove Social Security numbers from millions of Medicare cards; Medicare officials says this would be costly and impractical; most private health insurance cards do not carry member’s Social Security number

  • HSPD-24 calls for coordinated use of biometrics among federal agencies

    New directive will standardize how the federal government shares biometrics and other biographical information

  • State Department: Robust security for U.S. e-passport

    Popular misconception notwithstanding, the new U.S. e-passprt are safe, says the State Department. One example: The card’s photograph cannot be removed with solvent; a laser engraving process embeds the photograph into the polycarbonate card stock, meaning that attempts to remove your picture will visibly mar the card

  • ID-protection ads come back to bite pitchman

    Todd Davis created a company which, he claimed, offered customers an iron-clad guarantee that their identity could not be stolen; to prove his point, ads for his fraud-prevention company, LifeLock, even offered his Social Security number next to his smiling mug; trouble is, a man in Texas did succeed in stealing Davis’s identity and used it to get a loan; now customers are suing

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  • Problems plague worker ID program

    The TWIC program is being rolled out, but long lines at enrollment centers, jammed phones, redundant background checks, and paperwork slow the process down

  • A push for ID cards to be used in Australia’s domestic travel

    Nine people inadvertently bypassed X-ray checks in the Qantas terminal at Brisbane’s domestic airport, causing its evacuation and flight delays; some argue that Aussie airports should adopt a passenger ID system similar to the U.S. Registered Traveler scheme

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  • An HSDW conversation with John Stroia, vice president, Government Security and Monitoring Solutions, Diebold

    Diebold has been adding “layers of protection” to its customers since 1859; Diebold provides one-stop shopping for technology-based electronic systems, software, and services, and the company is active in all four major security markets: financial; commercial (retail); enterprise (large corporations); and government

  • Security concerns over U.S. decision to outsource e-passport production

    The U.S. Government Printing Office’s (GPO) decision to outsource the production of the new e-passports to companies in Europe and Thailand makes legislators, security experts worry; Thailand is an unstable country with a tradition of corruption and rising Islamic terrorism problem; the Dutch company which operates the Thai e-passport production facilities filed court papers in October 2007 charging that China had stolen the company’s patented technology for e-passport chips

  • New U.K. approach to national ID card scheme

    Technology is just one issue in the U.K. government’s overhaul of controversial identity plan

  • DHS insists on states' complaince with Real ID

    DHS wants all states to incorporate biometric and RFID technologies into the driver licenses they issue — or risk having citizens of states which fail to do so being barred from flights and federal buildings; the states argue that they do not have the funds to implement this mandate; DHS says it may be willing to be flexible, but at the end states would have to comply

  • Three more EU members on way to visa waver status

    The United States, continuing to defy the EU, grants pre-visa waiver status to Slovakia, Hungary, and Lithuania; EU wants to negotiate a package deal on behalf of the twelve new EU members, while U.S. prefers to deal with each country on its security merits

  • Growth of facial recognition biometrics, II

    Some twenty states already use facial recognition in their DMVs, and more states are planning to do so; the federal government incorporates facial recognition in some of its important initiatives; privacy advocates are concerned that the technology is becoming too pervasive

  • TSA to examine airport passenger screenings

    TSA to undertake a sweeping review of airport security practices; private jets’ owners and passengers will have to provide personal information to be screened by border patrol

  • Heathrow's Terminal 5 will open in two weeks

    The new, beautiful terminal — it also has an impressive view of the airport and its surroundings — will open on 14 March, and begin operations on 27 March; the mixing — and fingerprinting — of both international and domestic travelers; transfers to other airlines; and tight security checks pose problems

  • Coast Guard, US-VISIT expands biometrics-at-sea to Florida Straits

    Since the program began in November 2006, the Coast Guard has collected biometric data from 1,526 migrants and prosecuted 118 of those migrants; program was tested in the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and judged successful, is now being expanded to the Florida Straits