They already have it in the passports in the US.

hi ian. i've always wondered why it would take so much longer to insert a passport containing a chip on the last page into a reader. passport officials already usually swipe the machine-readable section of this page through a reader. takes away pretty much all of the rfid security problems.

Well, the devil is in the details. The problem with using the experience of the masstransits is that they are only interested in LOW VALUE transactions.

Whereas the passport people are inherently after HIGH VALUE transactions.....

Which means the experience is not as valid as all that, and the need to for fast throughput is actually not that relevant.

Except, as I pointed out, tests showed that RFID-enabled passports were processed more slowly. So the LAX factor is the inverse of your claim.

Some related posts...

Contactless Cards Tipped To Displace Cash In US
http://www.epaynews.com/index.cgi?survey=&ref=browse&f=view&id=1138806867622215212&block=
a lot of work was done on AADS chip strawman in the 98 time-frame to
support proximity, selecting solutions and components that could meet
proximity power profile requirements
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm2.htm#straw
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm2.htm#strawm3
Popularity Of Prepaid Cards Triggers Fraud Growth
http://www.epaynews.com/index.cgi?survey=&ref=browse&f=view&id=1138803684622215212&block=
recent observation on gift card skimming
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm22.htm#10

"The problem with using the experience of the masstransits is that they are only interested in LOW VALUE transactions."

That's right. Some London Transport season tickets aren't worth more than a few thousand pounds :)

One thing missing from the experience bullet points: the experience of the mass transit folks is that contactless has a much lower lifetime cost of ownership.