Sunday, December 10, 2006

Non-RFID passports - am I too late to get one now?

Can any of my tech-savvy friends (or State Department friends) tell me - have I missed the period when I could still get a new passport without an RFID chip? Not that I have any international travel planned in the near future (that would require funds and a destination), but it would suck to get a new passport, finally travel overseas again, and have my information snarfed by some criminal-type person.

Anyone have solid info on this for me? I should have done it months ago, but it hasn't been possible...

Thanks, kids!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was all over the tech news feeds about 3 months ago. Unfortunately I also missed the boat and now have to renew my passport and am not so for the idea of RFID. There are wallets and purses out there that you can buy that contain the RFID frequency however. Let me know if you figure out otherwise!

Claire said...

ooh, let me know what you find out.

Anonymous said...

I've been meaning to respond - I'm not sure if all passport locations are printing the new ones yet, even though they are supposed to be by the end of this year. Mine just expired, and I haven't sent in the renewal forms yet, but I can let you know what I get.

Anonymous said...

What's this all about? Ok, I gather it has something to do with required funds and destination.. But what exactly?

Love, your ignorant Norwegian friend

Anonymous said...

How To: Disable Your Passport's RFID Chip
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/start.html?pg=9

Excerpt:
4) The best approach? Hammer time. Hitting the chip with a blunt, hard object should disable it. A nonworking RFID doesn’t invalidate the passport, so you can still use it.