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Have Data, Will Travel

The idea of electronic passports is getting closer to fruition, and it's got security and privacy advocates in an uproar. The new passports will include a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag that will store all the information on the data page of the passport, including name, date and place of birth, and a digitized version of the photo. The State Department said last week that it is confident the right security and encryption measures will be in place. Critics argue that high-tech identity thieves will have easy access to the data because they won't have to physically touch the cards to steal information. But there's a bigger question becomes, "is it worth it to move to an electronic format?" Do citizens need to have their information stored electronically? Will it increase efficiency and make the customs process easier, or are we using technology for technology's sake? Sometimes momentum builds internally for an initiative that looks good on paper, but as it goes along the customer focus gets lost and the long-term benefits decline. Yet companies are too deep in to be brave enough to stop. We've seen this happen over the last few years with major CRM implementations, as an example. Now it looks like the government may be following this path, with US citizen information on the line. Have you ever been faced with re-working (or abandoning) an initiative to stay the customer course? What internal challenges did you face? What pitfalls should be taken into account?