Expat Community > Belize

chipdownsouth
Joined 2015
Posts: 28

Ok, About That Chip In Your Passport

8 years ago

I spent most of the day yesterday trying to find out exactly what is on that little chip the State Dept is now putting in your passport. I must have looked over 20 websites regarding this, and got about 20 different answers.

The 1st question is why they put it there to start with. The apparent answer is 'because they can'. And why wouldn't they? The government listens to your phone calls, reads your mail, checks to see what movies you rent, what books you check out of the library, what websites you go to, and what you had for breakfast.

Secondly, the State Dept insists there is no actual information on the chip, only a number that references a file maintained by the department. This is supposedly to protect you from unauthorized chip readers collecting information about you. Of course, we all know that hackers never get into systems like that! And if they do get into your passport they receive the message "This is tourist, probably with money in his pocket".

Some sites will tell you the only thing on the chip is biometric information such as your description and a digital picture. Others say that if you are an international criminal, or if there is a warrant out for you, that will be detected when your passport is scanned, and you will be arrested at that point. So much for biometrics only.

Then there is the fingerprint issue. Since they fingerprint you at customs, there has to be something to match the prints up with. More biometric information, or FBI records? Does that include your religious affiliation? Your sexual preferences? Your membership in AARP? Are you a republican or a democrat?

One thing is for sure...we can trust whatever the government tells us. We all know they would never lie to us, And they are totally competent. And they wouldn't put something on that chip without telling us it's there.

One interesting point I found was that the State Department will use these chips to prevent someone from leaving the country. A felon who has served their time and is on parole or federal supervised release cannot be prevented from leaving. If they were it would constitute detention, and thus they would still be imprisoned...just a prison with a bigger fence.

So they accomplish this not by preventing someone from leaving, but by preventing that person from entering another country, which pretty much gets the job done. And they do this by making agreements with other countries that "we won't let your people into the US, and you won't let our citizens into yours".

And how would they accomplish this? Passport chips.

Like with so many other topics, there is a plethora of information available on the internet. But you have no way of knowing what info is correct, and what is not. No matter how many times you have traveled and had your passport scanned and your fingerprints taken, you have no way of knowing what's on that chip except for what the government tells you is on it.

And we all know the government wouldn't lie to us, or engage in covert snooping.

Just ask Eric Snowden. Maybe we can get him a job at State, and find out what's really going on.

Maybe someone out there works for the State Department and can give us accurate, truthful information about this. But I doubt it.

By the way...since I have posted this on a public website, and have mentioned both the State Dept and Eric Snowden, it should be only a matter of a few minutes until the NSA is reading it. So if you don't hear from me for a while you may conclude that I got a visit from the men in black.

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