Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act

Have you heard of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) of 2004? It was signed into law in the US by President Bush last week. The EFF are not pleased. They're characterising it as the latest versions of the now defunct Total(/terrorism) Information Awareness (TIA), CAPPS II, PATRIOT III and a biometric national identity card system all rolled into one.

The 235 pages of the act are available online. The table of contents runs to 6 pages and the Act undertakes to reform the intelligence community, the FBI, transportation security, cross border travel, terrorism prevention and implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. That's quite an undertaking for one piece of legislation.

Section 7212 deals with ID cards and says that Federal agencies will not be allowed to accept any form of "personal identification card newly issued by a State more than 2 years after the promulgation of the minimum standards" to set for these documents by the US Secretary of Transportation in consultation with the Secretary for Homeland Security within the next 18 months. It goes on to say these standards should include a requirement for various personal details to be included on the cards, including a digital photo, "common machine-readable identity information" and "capable of accommodating and ensuring the security of a digital photograph or other unique identifier." (Emphasis mine). This later requirement will probably be what has the EFF concerned about biometric national ID cards, especially in the light of an earlier part of the act which emphasises biometrics in airline security.

So it looks as though the US are going for a national ID card too, though the finer details are in the hands of the relevant Secretaries.

The Act does also seem to provide the statutory grounding for the US government's replacement for the defunct CAPPS II programme, the new programme being labeled Secure Flight and heavily focuses biometric technology in connection with aviation security in section 4011. I've only scanned this quickly but it doesn't appear to refer to "Secure Flight" by name but by a rather more generic handle, "Advanced Airline Passenger Pre-Screening."