Since we tend to discuss the goverment’s ever-encroaching into our everyday lives, I decided to take this opportunity to discuss radio-frequency identification devices.
What is RFID? According to RFID Journal, “RFID is a generic term for technologies that use radio waves to automatically identify people or objects… the most common [method is] to store a serial number that identifies a person or object, and perhaps other information, on a microchip that is attached to an antenna …[which] converts the radio waves reflected back from the RFID tag into digital information that can then be passed on to computers that can make use of it.”
Scary, huh? RFID tags are used in retail, packaging, transport, medical and defense…oh yeah…and people and animals.
The Michigan Messenger reported this week that a group of farmers, including three Amish, are suing the U.S. and Michigan departments of agriculture because a mandated RFID tracking system violates their First Amendment rights. The farmers believe the tags and the numbering system signify “the mark of the beast” as found in the Book of Revelation in the Bible.
Some may think they’re loony. I don’t think they’re far off. It may not be the mark itself, but a use of conditioning to get the public comortable so that there are no questions when the time comes.
Also this week, the Associated Press reported that the great state of New York has begun issuing driver licenses with RFID tags, for ease of cross-border travel, of course.
Possibly one of the most outspoken opposers of RFID technology is consumer and privacy advocate Katherine Albrecht. Regarding the technology as “spy chips,” she wrote in 2002:
“Though many RFID proponents appear focused on inventory and supply chain efficiency, others are developing financial and consumer applications that, if adopted, will have chilling effects on consumers’ ability to escape the oppressive surveillance of manufacturers, retailers, and marketers. Of course, government and law enforcement will be quick to use the technology to keep tabs on citizens, as well.”
Also, the Washington Post recently featured a lengthy article discussing a series of veterinary and toxicolgy reports from the mid-90s stating that. ”chip implants had ‘induced’ malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.”
Albrecht was quoted in the article adding that chips had also been linked to cancer in dogs as well.
I tend to agree with those against RFID implants. Not only for biblical reasons, but for reasons of freedom.
If everything you buy has a chip in it, what happens to consumer privacy?
If you are implanted with a chip, who is reading the information and what are they using the information for? What happens to your individual right to privacy?
1 Comment
September 22, 2008 at 1:29 am
Hi! A fellow blogger who also sees the potential and risks assosciated with this kind of tracking. Nice to know we’re not alone. You may be interested in my blog, look at RFID categories.
Here’s a couple of artcles:
http://deandonaldson.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/no-verichip-inside/
or
http://deandonaldson.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/the-last-enemy-%e2%80%93-living-in-the-uk/
just to folow this one through to its logical conclusion.