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The Dartmouth
July 9, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Chips used in College IDs to be included in passports

Despite the storm of controversy swirling over the State Department's proposal to integrate radio identification technology into passports, Dartmouth has continued to use a simpler version of the technology for building access since 2001. The State Department intends to include the chips in new passports on a limited basis beginning in mid-2005 and in all passports issued from 2006 onward.

Privacy activists and business groups worry that use of proximity chips, also known as contactless chips or RFIDs, in passports could compromise the safety of Americans traveling abroad. The chips would store all of the information currently on passports in addition to biometric information, such as fingerprints and iris scans.

Proximity chips are very small silicon chips that store information and send it to a reader via a magnetic field. They are more convenient than similar technologies like barcodes and magnetic stripes because they do not require contact between the chip and the reader.

In Public Notice 4993, the State Department announced its intention to include contactless integrated security chips in passports to speed up customs, thwart counterfeiting and increase security.

Although RFIDs must be held within a few inches of the reader to transmit data, anyone with a reader can skim off information from an RFID when close enough. Also, when RFIDs actually begin transmitting, their information can be picked up from as far away as 10 meters, according to a March 31 Wired article. This could allow anyone with the proper technology to loiter in a customs area and identify travelers carrying US passports.

Business groups and privacy advocates fear that this will make it easier for common criminals, kidnappers, and terrorists to identify and target Americans traveling abroad. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives condemned the plan to include RFIDs in passports in a press release issued on March 28.

"The thought that your travel documents could be broadcasting your nationality to those with an interest in harming U.S. citizens is bad enough," said ACTE President Greeley Koch. "But it could also be pinpointing likely targets for pickpockets, thieves, and even providing information to steal."

The only information stored on the RFIDs in student ID cards is the account number printed on the lower right backside of the cards. When an ID is issued to a student, that number is linked to the student's account which contains a list of buildings the student can access. When the card is held near a reader, the RFID transmits the account number to the reader, the reader sends the account number to the central system, and the system checks the card owner's account to determine whether the owner has access rights for that building.

While RFIDs allow students to be tracked by the College as they enter buildings, access to these records is tightly controlled. Only Safety and Security has access to the database, Director of Operations for Facilities Operation and Management Frank Roberts said.

"To access the database there must be a compelling reason to get any info from the base," College Proctor Harry Kinne of Safety and Security told The Dartmouth in February 2004. "A serious crime is a good example -- the information might aid in helping to identify the people who may have been in the immediate area and who could assist in the investigation."

The College began discussing the use of RFIDs in 2000. Prior to adopting the technology, student IDs used only magnetic stripes with three "tracks." Each track holds only one type of information. Initially the tracks were used for Dash, DDS, and building access. The College decided to remove building access from one of the tracks to free up room for BbOne, according to Roberts.

A committee of Dartmouth technical representatives decided to move the building access to proximity chips and Roberts oversaw the installation of the system as the project's manager.

"There was competition for tracks on the back of the card, so it seemed to make sense to take access control away from the stripe, and factoring in the convenience, it just seemed to be the way to go," Roberts said.

Dartmouth ID cards are DuoProx-model cards manufactured by HID, a company that also provides security systems for the city of Los Angeles, Nike World Headquarters and the U.S. Navy among others.