News Room: SB 31: RFID Skimming Ban
August 2010
Sunday, August 08, 2010
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Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Morain writes that the next governor needs to defend a state’s right to protect personal data.
In California, privacy is a fundamental right. This state has a constitutional amendment identifying privacy as inalienable. And for better or worse, legislators don’t see themselves as potted plants. Some actually care about state law. All that means the next governor will grapple with privacy or lack of it right here in Sacramento.
“States often have to lead to get attention at the federal level,” said Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, the Legislature’s most prolific author of bills that seek to provide at least a thin veil of privacy. Simitian helped push a first-in-the-nation requirement that companies tell us when a security breach has spewed our personal information into other people’s hands. Because of a 2004 Simitian bill, California requires companies doing business in the state to post privacy policies on their websites. Lately, Simitian has sought to limit the misuse of radio frequency identification. Now Simitian is carrying legislation to protect people who use FasTrak to pay bridge tolls.
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May 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
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Privacy Piracy host Mari Frank interviews State Senator Joe Simitian on his range of legislation aimed at protecting Californians' privacy.
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October 2008
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
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Sacramento – State Senator Joe Simitian’s legislation (SB 31) to outlaw “skimming,” the covert reading of personal information stored on RFID-enabled ID cards, was signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill makes it a crime to surreptitiously read information stored on tiny electronic devices known as RFID tags.
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January 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
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Sacramento - The California State Senate took action today to outlaw “skimming,” the surreptitious reading of personal information stored on RFID-enabled ID cards, State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, announced today.
RFID stands for radio frequency identification. It involves placing a “tag,” a tiny receptor device containing electronic information, on an object. The tag can be read by directing radio waves at it, which causes the tag to send back a signal containing the information.
“The problem is real,” Simitian said. In a controlled experiment, “the card I use to access the State Capitol was skimmed and cloned by a hacker in a split second. Minutes later, using that clone of my card, he was able to walk right into the Capitol through a ‘secure’ and locked entrance.”
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August 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
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Sacramento – State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) announced today that his Senate Bill 362, which would prohibit any person from forcing any other person to undergo an implant in their body of a radio frequency identification (RFID) device, passed the Senate Floor on a 28-9 vote today. The bill now goes to the Governor.
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June 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
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What if you lost a child and the authorities could track and find him or her, using radio frequencies? Now, what if authorities could track your movements in the same way, and know whether you were attending, for instance, an anti-war rally. The monitoring ability of RFID, which stands for radio frequency identification, has become a very hot topic lately. So far, it’s a debate that pits the electronics industry against privacy-rights advocates.
This year, concerns about the use of RFID have prompted State Senator Joe Simitian, of Palo Alto, to sponsor legislation. He wants to place real limits on the ability of authorities to use RFID to keep track of people and identify them.
Audio Segment on KPBS Website
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Monday, June 25, 2007
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Slap a chip costing a few cents on a clock radio or a bottle of Prozac, and you can track it from its manufacturer to the cash register at Wal-Mart. Build a chip into a special windshield tag, and it allows drivers to zip across the Golden Gate Bridge without stopping at a toll booth. Put one in a corporate identification card and all of a sudden it becomes an electronic door key.
Such is the power of radio frequency identification, or RFID, a technology that’s been around for a half-century but is finally beginning to transform commerce - and become controversial.
Full story on San Jose Mercury News website
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Tuesday, June 19, 2007
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SACRAMENTO - Attempting to prevent a potential clash between privacy rights and the latest technological advances, a Palo Alto lawmaker is trying to dissuade the state government, schools and private businesses from tracking people through the use of radio frequency identification devices such as electronic cards and implanted devices.
A legislative package of four measures by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, will be introduced in an Assembly committee today that would prohibit an employer from implanting tiny ID chips in workers, block RFID technology from being embedded in driver’s licenses, prohibit schools from issuing ID cards to track student attendance and make it a misdemeanor to skim identification cards - a method by which identity thieves secretly read the cards of unsuspecting people and clone new versions.
His measures, vociferously opposed by the tech industry, were prompted in part by the increasing availability of wireless equipment sold in stores and cyberspace that can read employee badges - even if they are in someone’s pocket or purse 20 feet away - and create a new card using that individual’s personal information.
Full story on San Jose Mercury News website
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May 2007
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
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Radio technology stops shoplifters - tracks merchandise, follows livestock and even tells you how bad traffic is. All through tiny radio transmitters called radio frequency identifiers, or RFID. All these devices transmit signals to receivers, like at the Fastrak toll booths.
"That means someone in state government knows where they've been, where they've gone know how long it took them to get there, and knows their movement through the bay area," says Senator Joe Simitian, (D) Palo Alto.
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April 2007
Monday, April 02, 2007
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The California legislature this month is expected to vote on several bills that would regulate the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in government documents. Similar legislation was approved by the body last year only to be vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in October.
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February 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
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All it takes is a second, and it's gone -- a modern day pick-pocket can snatch your credit card and other personal information without ever touching your wallet. The thieves need only a little know how, and about a hundred bucks. The technology we rely on everyday -- is being abused.
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