MANHASSET, N.Y. — For the next generation of technology choices for U.S. border security, the Pogo constant applies: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Three different identification card programs under development in the United States will use three different technologies with no consistency, little long-term strategy and a virtually nonexistent regime of government coordination.

While the United States' new electronic passport deploys contactless smart card technology, the Real ID card (an enhanced driver's license) will use a 2D bar code. Meanwhile, the third form of identification, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative's PASS (People Access Security Service) Card, will employ RFID technology based on Enhanced Product Code Generation 2 (EPC Gen 2), originally developed for tagging products as part of supply chain management. The Pass Card was developed as an inexpensive alternative ID card to a passport, including U.S. citizens returning from Canada, Mexico, Panama, the Caribbean, and Bermuda.

The opportunity to go electronic with the Real ID card has already passed. The card will roll out over the next few years. But technology companies are making a last-ditch effort to convince Congress to change the implementation decision on the Pass Card. Members of the Secure ID Coalition and Smart Card Alliance including Texas Instruments, Gemalto and Infineon Technologies are in Washington Wednesday (July 18) to brief lawmakers on identification technologies. The briefing includes a real-time demonstration showing the differences between two types of automatic identification technologies for electronic ID documents: RFID and contactless smart card technologies.

Developers, many of whom provide both contactless smart card and RFID tags, are imploring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to at least conduct a trial to evaluate the performance of both technologies before going live with the new Pass card. When compared with RFID tags, they believe that a Pass Card system "designed using contactless smart card technology will fulfill the operation requirement for high throughput while also providing stronger security, protecting individual privacy, and leveraging the ePassport infractructure," according to the Smart Card Alliance's white paper.

Even though a solicitation for Pass card is already out, and RFID technology forms a basis for the RFP, "This is still an important issue that needs to be discussed," said Tres Wiley, director of electronic documents at Texas Instruments. That's because Pass Card technology could "set a precedent" for any electronic documents of the future. "It's unfortunate that the government decided to go with a 'non-electronic card' for Real ID," he said.