Manufacturers of radio frequency identification products are banding together to keep lawmakers from prohibiting use of the technology.

Legislation is pending before lawmakers in at least five states, including California, to regulate or outright ban the use of RFID on state-issued documentation such as driver’s licenses, school identification cards or library cards.

Eleven other states have made attempts at such legislation and have failed.

“Our mantra has been don’t ban the technology, ban the bad behavior,” said Roxanne Gould, the lead lobbyist in Sacramento for the American Electronics Association. “This is technology that can benefit consumers and could stop identity theft.”

Some uses for radio frequency identification chips or tags are access control devices to enter secure buildings or settings; in transponders to pass through toll booths; and on hospital wristbands containing medical information.

Legislation is driven by concerns that personal information contained on the chips could be accessed without the user knowing.

The AeA, whose Los Angeles area office is located in Woodland Hills, is throwing its support behind a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Alberto Torrico calling for a report from the California Research Bureau on uses of RFID in government issued identification. The bill is still at the committee level in the Assembly.

Gould called the bill a response to a set of pending bills proposed by Sen. Joe Simitian that would place a three-year hold on the use of the technology in driver’s licenses and identification cards issued to students through high school age.

Bill Newill, vice president for sales and marketing with Secura Key in Chatsworth, said the control access systems company was not aware of Simitian’s legislation until several months after it had been introduced in the spring of 2005.

The bills were re-introduced for the current legislative session and the industry is working to have the language amended so that it is technology neutral and addresses the issues lawmakers want to address, Newill said, adding, “It’s not the technology they are concerned about.”

The concerns of RFID opponents can be summed up in one word: privacy.
There are fears that the expanding use of RFID personal information would be susceptible to being read by strangers.

“Neither government nor private industry has given the public much reason to trust their ability to safeguard sensitive personal information,” read a Los Angeles Times editorial from August 2005 backing Simitian’s bills.

But those who back the technology say those fears are unfounded.