California legislature wants to mandate radio-readable driver's licenses (CALL NOW!)

By Cory Doctorow at 4:55 pm Tue, Sep 8, 2015

The new licenses can be read from up to 30' away and at the last minute, nearly all privacy protections were stripped from the bill mandating them.

Up until a few days ago, the EDL program proposed in the bill would have prohibited companies from requiring employees to get EDLs, or discriminating against those who refused to get them. The bill also required the unique ID number stored in the RFID tag to be encrypted or otherwise protected from unauthorized reading.

...At the 11th hour, the legislature stripped nearly all the privacy protections. The only security that remains is a DMV-issued sleeve for the card that’s supposed to block RFID readers. But at least one study showed that these sleeves don’t completely block EDLs from being read—they just require someone to get a little closer. And worse yet, now an employer can force its employees to apply for this privacy nightmare, or risk termination.

If you live in California, please call the following legislators and let them know you don’t support the privacy-invasive amendments made to S.B. 249.

* Senator Hueso: (916) 651-4040

* Assemblymember Stone: (916) 319-2029

* Assemblymember Alejo: (916) 319-2030

* Assemblymember Chau: (916) 319-2049

* Assemblymember Chiu: (916) 319-2017

* Assemblymember Holden: (916) 319-2041

California: Protect Your Driver's License Privacy [Jeremy Gillula and Dave Maass/EFF]

(Image: Blue and Purple RFID tag, Midnightcomm, CC-BY)