The Foreign Service Journal, December 2005

D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 29 erhaps it is an exaggeration to say that radio frequency identification is a broad, all-encompassing tech- nology that has the capacity for influencing our daily lives around the word, much as the sun does now. But it is only a slight overstatement. First used in World War II to identify airplanes, RFID has quietly expanded over the past 60 years to several important applications we now take for granted, such as remote keyless entry to our cars. Last year, it was spiced up and moved to the F O C U S O N I T A N D D I P L O M A C Y T HE S UN , THE W ORLD , AND RFID Valerie Sinclair P T HE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND E - PASSPORTS PROMISES TO DRAMATICALLY STREAMLINE THE GLOBAL MOVEMENT OF GOODS AND PEOPLE . B Y E MILY S OPENSKY