RFID Lowdown: Spy-warning Lurks over RFID

June 11, 2006

Spy-warning Lurks over RFID

Moving parallel with technology has always fetched us rewards prima facie. But ills associated are unearthed later. Here's another one: last October, Dr. Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre came with this award winning book -- " Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID" -- that created ripples in the RFID circuit. The book dissected RFID as a controversial technology that uses tiny microchips to track everyday movements of people secretly.

The book's content promulgates harms RFID (microchip) technology cause. It talks about the microchip as containing a unique identification number that enables to peek into your privacy silently and invisibly using radio waves, and thus the name "Spychips" comes to fore. Aren't we already into too much of wave-based syndromes when it comes to gadgets we use daily? To that, book authors would certainly pin point reports where VeriChip Corporation was in talks with Washington about how its chip that could be used to register guest workers for the need to identity verification on border crossing, etc. So, does that necessitate an alarm on RFID?

Spain has got the book in Spanish and so are the other Latin American nations like Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and Chile. It is being feared by the industry (using RFID) that the book is promoting an undue belief about RFID on privacy and civil liberties. They feel that making this book available to a larger audience would create panic amongst RFID users.

Privacy and civil liberties are a concern in a dynamic environment where technological advancement constantly on up gradation. May be a little more won't do much harm to you, or would it…? Now, it is upto you to decide.

--
Did you enjoy this post?

June 11, 2006 | Permalink