Bill on Use of Identification Chips in Health Insurance Cards, Other Documents Amended

Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) has amended a bill (SB 682) that would limit the use of radio frequency identification chips on health insurance cards, drivers' licenses and other personal-identification documents, the Los Angeles Times reports. The Senate last month approved the bill, and the Assembly next Tuesday is expected to vote on it.

The amended version of the bill would prohibit state and local governments from mandating RFID technology on drivers' licenses, student IDs, and health insurance and public library cards. However, the bill would not limit how private industry uses the technology, and the government could still use the technology in other forms of identification, provided it that:

Information be disguised with a unique identifier;
State and local governments encrypt the unique identifier to ensure that only people with a code could access the information; and
The cards not convey information to a reader until a password verifies that the machine is authorized to receive the data.

The legislation in its initial form would have created an "across-the-board ban" on the use of RFID chips in identification documents regardless of whether they were issued by government or private entities, according to the Times (Vogel, Los Angeles Times, 6/22). This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.