RFIDs: Radio Frequency IDentification tags/chips/systems (RFIDs)

by James K. Sayre

Boycott the new Chase Bank RFID-embedded credit cards Boycott the new RFID universal tracking system that will allow banks, governments and busy-bodies to track your every move. These folks have no need to know where you are every microsecond. Soon, VISA will have to change its slogan to "You will be whereever we want you to be...". . Boycott Chase Bank RFID cards

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags, which are a new class of tiny little microchip devices that are being used for identification and tracking of shipping pallets, consumer products and now even California school children.

The RFIDs are very small, about the size of a grain of wheat or even smaller. They contain a microchip with a unique identification code and a tiny receiving and broadcasting system. This RFID tag receiving and broadcasting system is activated and powered by a radio signal from an outside scanner/reader/sensor device. After being initially signalled by the scanner/reader/sensor, the RFID replies with a radio broadcast of its unique identification code.

With new research and development, and now, the economies of mass production, the RFIDs are becoming both cheaper and smaller.

RFIDs represent a new and potentially pervasive threat to our remaining privacy in the industrial/corporate world of the 21st century, because the consumer products containing these RFIDs can be read long after you have left the store. Does the FBI know where your backpack is? Should they know? Do they have a right to know? Do you know which consumer products will have RFID tags imbedded in them? Do you want to be inbed or imbedded with RFIDs?

Here are a few links to groups and organizations that are trying to protect our rights and privacy as citizens:

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Electronic Privacy Information Center

No Cards/Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN)/ SpyChips.com: No Cards.org Spy Chips .com

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is also speaking out against indescriminate use of RFIDs: American Civil Liberties Union

Up-to-date information about RFIDs can also be easily found by doing an Internet search for terms: "rfid," or "radio frequency identification."

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Web page last updated on 20 May 2005.