IP: Hong Kong Plans Digital ID

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rahettinga () earthlink net>


http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/technology/18KONG.html?todaysheadlines=&pa
gewanted=print



February 18, 2002


Fine-Tuning for Privacy, Hong Kong Plans Digital ID


By MARK LANDLER


HONG KONG, Feb. 15 - The border crossing between Hong Kong and mainland
China was choked the other day as more than five million people took to the
road to visit their relatives for the Chinese New Year.

It is an annual ordeal, marked by restless jostling and muttered curses as
the crowd waits, sometimes for hours, while the guards examine people's
papers. It may also be a thing of the past.

Starting next year, Hong Kong plans to introduce an identity card with a
computer chip that will contain a digital replica of the cardholder's
thumbprint. To cross the China frontier, a person with the card will hold
it against an optical reader while placing his or her thumb on a screen.

If the prints match, the traveler will pass through - a procedure that Hong
Kong officials say will last but a second.

"You don't have to have an immigration officer there to look at the card,"
said Eric T. P. Wong, the deputy director of Hong Kong's immigration
department. "It's just a self-service kiosk."

Fears of terrorism have prompted some Americans, too, to call for the
United States to issue a national identity card. In Hong Kong in recent
weeks, the focus of the campaign has shifted toward creating uniform
standards that would allow driver's licenses to be used as de facto ID
cards.

Identity cards have existed in Hong Kong for half a century, and digital
technology is now revolutionizing the uses of such a card - making it a
potentially indispensable tool of daily life but raising new fears about
privacy and the use of personal data.

"We're not opposed to people having to carry ID cards," said Sin Chung-kai,
a pro- democracy member of Hong Kong's legislature who led the debate on
the issue. "The crux of the controversy is how much other information about
a person should be stored on the card."

Hong Kong's current ID, a laminated card that looks like a driver's
license, has a photo, biographical data and the cardholder's residency
status. But the chip embedded in the new card has room for a wealth of
other information, including medical and financial data and driving records.

The government plans to award a contract within two weeks for the
production of these so-called smart identification cards, which it intends
to issue to Hong Kong's 6.8 million residents over four years.

The contract is worth $394 million, and major foreign and local technology
and telecommunications companies have submitted bids - not only to supply
cards but also the optical readers and the computer database that will
store information on millions of thumbprints.

"It's a contract with a lot of possibilities," said Frederick Ma, the
executive director of Pacific Century CyberWorks, Hong Kong's flagship
telephone company, which is the heavy favorite to win the assignment.

Chief among them is the possibility of expanding onto the Chinese mainland.
China already requires its 1.3 billion people to carry laminated
identification cards. But the government is eager to issue smart
identification cards with multiple uses. The authorities in Beijing have
asked immigration officials here whether Hong Kong's card could serve as a
model for the mainland's own.

Malaysia has introduced a national ID card, known as MyKad, that also
serves as a passport, electronic purse and driver's license. Brunei issues
a smart card with more limited uses.

In the United States, where compulsory ID cards have been anathema, the
idea has attracted some support. In the wake of September's attacks, some
regard the security advantages of a card as more important than the
potential threat to civil liberties.

As the trauma of Sept. 11 recedes a bit, though, advocates of
identification cards are focused on standardizing driver's licenses rather
than issuing new cards. More than 90 percent of American adults hold
licenses, many of which have bar codes or magnetic stripes. Congress is
weighing legislation that would link the state motor vehicle databases into
a national database.

In Hong Kong, a former British colony, the basic debate was settled long
ago. It began requiring residents to carry identification cards in 1949,
after it was swamped by refugees fleeing the Communist revolution in China.

Hong Kong's separate status has made people here sensitive to any
encroachment of their civil liberties, particularly since the city returned
to China's control in 1997. The public debate here over the new ID card was
long and spirited. When pro- democracy lawmakers raised privacy concerns,
officials shelved their more ambitious proposals for the card.

"If I were a film star and I had some kind of disease, I wouldn't want it
to be on my ID card," Mr. Sin said. "I also wouldn't want the ID to be my
cash card. I don't want my spending traced."

After floating the idea of storing other data, like medical information or
even money, on the identification card, Hong Kong now plans to limit it to
basic uses. In addition to immigration data, the chip will have space for a
digital certificate: an electronic signature that has legal standing and
can be transmitted in coded form for use in electronic commerce.

Few people here now use these signatures, which are sold by the post office
in the form of encoded cards.

But with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange introducing online stock trading, and
the Hong Kong Jockey Club (news/quote) pushing online betting, officials
predict that their use will grow rapidly.

Hong Kong had initially hoped to imprint a driver's license on the ID card.
But that proposal foundered on concerns that the card would have to be
traded in if the person's license was suspended.

The authorities still plan to phase out the separate driver's license,
storing all the information on a database in the Transport Department.
Police officers with wireless hand- held terminals will be able to gain
access to this data using the ID card, which people must carry at all times
anyway.

Some officials remain enthusiastic about the identification card's
potential as a sort of central repository in the future. They note that it
could store money, making it what they call an e-purse. It could serve as a
digital version of a medical bracelet, with information on allergies or
chronic illnesses, and contain details on the cardholder's welfare benefits.

"I think it could be extraordinarily convenient," said Michael V. Stone, an
official in Hong Kong's information technology and broadcasting bureau who
is dreaming up new uses for the card.

In case public attitudes change, Hong Kong plans to leave 20 percent of the
chip's memory unused for future applications.

Hong Kong has walked a similarly fine line in its use of biometrics, the
technique of identifying people through unique physical characteristics
like fingerprints. The government originally considered iris scans as a way
of verifying a person's identity. That was rejected out of concern that
people might object to exposing their eyes to light beams.

Fingerprints presented another problem. "We had to think very carefully
about the use of thumbprints because people worry that they could be
stolen," Mr. Stone said.

Rather than use a digital image of a thumbprint, which could be copied,
Hong Kong plans to create an algorithm of the print. That mathematical
information will allow an optical reader to determine whether a set of
prints match, but it will not provide enough information to re-create the
print.

Digital thumbprints are used in cards issued by Singapore to Malaysian
workers who work in Singapore. Since the system was put into effect, the
Singapore government has not recorded a case of a person successfully
crossing the border on someone else's card.

Such security would be of great value in Hong Kong, which faces a perennial
problem of mainland Chinese migrants crossing illegally into the territory.
A common ploy is to travel on another person's ID card by tampering with
the photo and the biographical data.

Mr. Wong is excited by the prospect of cracking down on illegal immigrants.
But he notes that the card will not be used more broadly to fight crime.
For example, the authorities have pledged not to compare individual
thumbprints against a database of prints.

"People are worried that it could become a very powerful weapon," Mr. Wong
said. "We had to give up some things to reassure the public."

-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah () ibuc com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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