[WSIS CS-Plenary] WSIS etc.

[wolfgang at imv.au.dk]

Happy New Yeaer to All

Here are some good news:

1. The ITU has taken the Civil Society Declaration to the front page of its official WSIS website and to the list of documents which you can download (in three languages). It says: "Civil Society Declaration: handed out to the President of the Summit at the last Plenary meeting on 12 December 2003". This sounds like Bill McIver appearence in the last Plenary Session a remarkable step forward in the process of recognition of civil society as an independent political factor. 
see: http://www.itu.int/wsis/

2. The Swedish Minister for Development, Mrs Astrid Dufborg, member of the UN ICT Taks Force, has a nice compliment and encouragement for civil society on the front page of the UN ICT TF Website:  "Extremely important point. Many of us, belonging to government and who have been fighting for having civil society along, have seen extremely good results of your efforts around WSIS - all over the place I hear about the meetings, discussions etc. You have done a great job. Keep on going! You have much more support than you know!" 
see: http://www.unicttaskforce.org/wsis/rt3_wk.asp    

Best wishes

wolfgang



-- Original Nachricht--
Von: Adam Peake <ajp at glocom.ac.jp>
An: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Senden: 01:36 PM
Betreff: [WSIS CS-Plenary] comments - article on RFIDs at the Summit



Story below from the Washington Times about the identity badges
we were required to used during the Summit. I've annotated with
comment/additional information in {italics} (if your email only
takes plain text, just look for the curly brackets).  Thanks to
Alberto for checking my notes.

Security of course important, but so are the concerns this issue
raises.

And a very Happy new year to all!

Thanks,

Adam



Summit group confirms use of ID chip
By Audrey Hudson and Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 18, 2003
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20031217-115051-5373r>

Organizers of the World Summit on the Information Society
yesterday confirmed that badges worn by high-level attendees were
affixed with identification chips some say were unknown to the forum's
participants.

{That RFIDs were used was not disclosed publicly before the
Summit began, or to my knowledge, announced during the
Summit.}

However, a spokesman for the International Telecommunication
Union (ITU), which was the host of the three-day event in Geneva last
week, scoffed at concerns by privacy advocates that the technology
could monitor an individual's movement or that the data it collects
could be misused.

{The RFID was in the name badge, and associated with a
database that contained all the information about the badge owner that
the person submitted during pre-registration. That information was a
minimum of name, position, affiliation, email address, nationality and
date of birth. Much more information was requested as optional, from
passport number and place of issue, to arrival and departure dates,
hotel, and so on. Potential then is to associate this information with
other data: for example the Summit secretariat helped with visa
applications and applications for fellowships which contain far more
detail -- note *potential*, not saying it actually happened. When the
badge was used at a check-point this pre-registered information along
with a corresponding picture was displayed on the operators screen. Of
course there were (are?) opportunities for misuse.}

Three European researchers who discovered the chips in their
badges, first reported by The Washington Times on Sunday, said
participants were not told about the chips.

{Correct, Summit participants were not told.}

ITU spokesman Gary Fowlie confirmed during an interview from Geneva
that radio frequency identification chips (RFIDs) were embedded in the
passes and that data readers were in place to record information
transmitted by the chip.

Mr. Fowlie disputed that RFIDs have long-range tracking capability,
and called The Times story "really off base."

"Transmission distance is 1 to 2 centimeters. You have to
put your badge right up to the screen," he said.

{This comment seems to have the technology back to front. A
card was analyzed in another country and was found to have a range of
70 cm to 1 meter. As analysis was made only on a limited number of
cards, so we can't be sure that all chips had the same properties: ITU
spokesperson may be correct, however it seems unlikely. The card
reader at the checkpoint may have required the badge to be pressed
close against it, the chip itself was much stronger. i.e. it had the
potential to be read by sensors not obvious to those passing by. *I am
not saying that such sensors existed* but that they could is the
point.}

But U.S. and European privacy advocates and critics of RFID technology
said the story was on target, and that the use of the chips at the
summit has caused an uproar in the United States and Europe.

"It sent off a shot heard round the world," said
Katherine Albrecht, director of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy
Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN), a leading opponent of RFID
technology.

"We're rolling in e-mails on this thing. It's confirmation this
is real, it is here, and it's being abused already."

Last week's summit, which was partly organized by the United Nations,
focused on Internet governance and access, security,
intellectual-property rights and privacy. The badges were worn by more
than 50 prime ministers, presidents and other high-level officials
from 174 countries, including a representative from the United States,
John Marburger, head of the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy.

In a lengthy statement to The Times yesterday, summit officials
said participants were notified some personal information would appear
on the Internet, but declined to say whether participants were told of
the embedded technology.

{We were asked during registration if we would like our email
addresses to be included in the publicly available list of
participants. It had been usual for WSIS preparatory meetings
(PrepComs), etc., for participants to be listed both on paper and
online: name, position and affiliation, with email optional. No
mention was made of "embedded technology".}

The passes were intended "to facilitate identification by
security at entry checkpoints," and participants had to swipe the
badges across the readers to gain access to the summit and meeting
rooms, the statement said.

{This is correct and the system worked quite well. Although at
least one person did obtain a govt. card after forging some
credentials.}

"Readers were quite prominently displayed and were only
placed at entry checkpoints," WSIS spokeswoman Francine Lambert
said. "The data stored on our servers do not and cannot monitor
movement."

{Of course the data collected could monitor movement. There
was a chronological log of when a badge-holder passed through a
checkpoint. Theses records would show that I went into the hall a
number of times each day (there was no apparent monitoring on the way
out). And database could also potentially (and easily) be searched to
see who went in at the same time as me. Me plus Joe one time: so what.
Me plus Joe seven times and someone might wonder if they see a
pattern?}

U.S. companies use RFID chips to track inventory from the factory to
stores. Manufactures also are testing a system that tracks products
leaving the shelves and alerts employees to restock.

EZ Pass, used at toll booths, uses RFID technology. Authorities
investigating the murder of federal prosecutor Jonathan P. Luna
learned that he had made repeated trips to Philadelphia during the
past six months by tracking electronic data gathered at toll booths in
Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The Defense Department is requiring its top 100 suppliers to implement
RFID technology by 2005 to track inventory. The remainder of its
43,000 suppliers must ship items RFID-ready by 2006.

But privacy advocates say the technology Mr. Fowlie described in use
at the summit can be used on humans.

"It's going to be used to track us," said Barry Steinhardt,
director of the technology and liberty program for the American Civil
Liberties Union in New York.

The ACLU said it has received complaints from Europeans concerned
about how data collected at the summit will be used at the 2005
summit, where Tunisia plays host.

"There is a lot of concern this data will be transferred to
Tunisia and used to punish citizens or residents, or to keep tabs on
the participants who are coming there, perhaps deny entry," Mr.
Steinhardt said. "There is a lot of concern that this data will
be transferred to a less-than-democratic nation."

{This concern was expressed strongly in Geneva. Many are
opposed to holding a Summit on information society in a country that
does not respect universal human rights. The problem is not so much in
the actual data gathered in Geneva, all that happened in Geneva was
probably harmless. The concern is that data gathered for one
reasonable purpose could be passed to a regime that might use it in
ways that could be harmful. e.g. While Geneva may never think to track
who I stood in line with, another government might be interested to
identify who associated with a participant they know to be hostile to
their regime. That "hostile" person might not go to the
Tunis Summit --for example-- but their previously anonymous associates
might.}

Ms. Lambert said the data was stored for one day on the readers
and erased, but did not say how long data was stored on the database
or if it was ever erased.

{Hard to tell if all the data collected is still in the ITU
database. I can access the first level of information for people that
were in GLOCOM's delegation. I cannot make changes. But this is the
same information that would be in the conference participants list
that has usually been available. Perhaps the more detailed information
has already been deleted?}

"The actual data submitted by participants was stored on
ITU-secured servers that were not accessible by any other party than
the [ITU, United Nations, and WSIS executive secretariat ], and the
data has not been communicated to any other party," she
said.

The personal data was obtained from visa applications.

"This has tremendous value for intelligence gathering,"
said Alberto Escudero-Pascual, a researcher in computer security and
privacy at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

The chips were discovered by Mr. Escudero-Pascual, Stephane Koch,
president of Internet Society Geneva, and George Danezis, a researcher
of privacy-enhancing technologies and computer security at Cambridge
University.

{Alberto Escudero-Pascual arrived at the Summit a couple of
days early, had his picture taken while registering and as the
operator's screen was turned slightly towards him, was able to see his
personal information flash on the screen as the photo was taken. He
realized the photo was going to be used to identify him in security
checks in the halls --of course, it's a high level, head of state
Summit, strong security is all fine and good. If it is sensibly
applied. But Alberto wonders how it would work? And so the story of
the RFID chip and data gathering begins to emerge.}

When the card containing an RFID chip is swiped onto the reader,
the location information is sent via the chip's antenna to a database
that contains information on the subject.

Mr. Escudero-Pascual said he witnessed the data collected by the
summit when his information flashed on a computer screen at an entry
point. The information included a picture of the participant, name,
occupation, organization, a time stamp of all main entry points and
each time the participant passed a line into a room.

The data is stored in chronological order, allowing readers to
determine when, where and which participants are walking into the
room.

"They might want to know, 'Who has Alberto been queuing with
for the last few days?' and they can basically see who Alberto is
working with or talking to by who he enters with," Mr.
Escudero-Pascual said.

"This is not a conspiracy theory. We use these systems in our
daily lives to open garages, but people are not aware" of other
ways the technology can be used, he said.

RFID chips are embedded in many "smart card" systems used
for access to military bases, airports, gated communities, hospitals,
state parks and country clubs. RFID chips also can alert government
agencies to a host of law-breaking activities, such as expired
insurance policies or license plates.

But tagging participants in a political summit raises privacy and
security issues, and privacy advocates think the summit's organizers
might have broken laws by not disclosing the chips' presence.

At least one of the researchers said it violates the Swiss
Federal Law on Data Protection of June 1992.

{Yes, opinion seems to be that it violates Swiss law, and
would normally be illegal in Geneva. Except the UN is in some cases
exempt from data protection laws. So while on Swiss soil but under the
auspices of the UN, it's likely that no violation occurred. However,
some UN data protection guidelines were ignored
<http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/71.htm> Wonder if the ITU
database is also protected? ITU has an unusual status in the UN
System. Alberto Escudero-Pascual has contacted most EU member states'
Data Protection Agencies and is seeking support from any individuals
and organizations in order to get a statement from ITU and the Swiss
Delegation in WSIS concerning the data collection practises and the
system in Tunisia.}

"They may be exempt from those laws, but they certainly
violated the spirit of the law by collecting highly personal
information without their knowledge or consent," Mr. Steinhardt
said.

END


--