Smart cards offer shorter queues, and more risk

By Tinnie Chow
EbizAsia Correspondent

HONG KONG, China (CNN) - Hong Kong's immigration office could soon use smart cards to eradicate long queues, but its technology may come at the expense of privacy.

The Hong Kong Immigration Department is considering doing away with laminated identification cards in favor of multi-functional smart cards, which will be able to tell a person's identity with a simple touch of a finger or thumb.

A new "smart" I.D. card - estimated to cost $HK3.1 billion ($397 million) to deploy -- could replace the existing Hong Kong I.D. card in 2003. It would use biometrics to compare a live fingerprint with one recorded into a silicon chip inside the card.

"What the biometrics (provides) is some proof of person -- some part of your physical presence or being is registered on the card," says Mac McGolpin, chief executive of biometric technology firm AsiaWebCo.

"If that is properly done, then that finger scan or iris scan, or even voice print, can actually be a means of controlling the information that's on the card."

Hong Kong a smart card leader

Hong Kong is already a leader in the use of smart cards through the successful implementation of its Octopus cards for use on its public rail system.

New ways of using Octopus cards are being initiated so they will eventually be used to pay for everything from cab fares to a late night dash to the corner store.

But while Octopus cards are simple cashless purses, the new biometric cards would store vast amounts of personal information, like addresses and conditions of stay in Hong Kong.

"Your personal information, your age, other characteristics about yourself, your history, where you come from, things like that," says McGolpin. "I think that has to be decided by Immigration exactly what they want to put on there."

Criminals not deterred by technology

But security experts say the difficulty in hacking into smart cards would do little to deter criminals who see enormous value in owning personal information.

"Credit cards, automatic teller machines, checks, all developed an industry of fraud against those systems," says Harry Godfrey, who spent 25 years with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and now works at corporate risk agency Kroll Associates.

"Now we're into a much higher tech, a higher level of card, it is going to be more difficult to break into the system and create a fraud around the smart card."

"But it is almost 100 percent certain that some group or individual, or some organization will figure out how to beat the system and we'll be into a new era of smart card fraud."

Immigration officials say they would monitor who has access to the information, and are taking additional precautions to assure users' privacy and security will not be compromised.

"I know that there are worries about hacking"

"I know that there are worries about hacking. The system that we put in place will be so secure that there will be detection devices everywhere," says Eric Wong, deputy director of Hong Kong Immigration.

"When you talk...about other (public) departments wanting to include their data in the I.D. card, that will be subject to firstly, policy approval from the government and secondly, it will be subject to public consultation."

Microsoft opens Windows to smart cards

AsiaWebCo.com
Kroll Associates

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