California Bars Mandatory Human RFID Implants

RFID Chips: The New Privacy-Killer
Written by Alan Bellows on October 14th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
From DamnInteresting.com

RFID chipIf you're the type to be a bit bothered by the privacy-breaching potential of shopper loyalty cards, then RFID tags should make you pretty twitchy. Short for Radio Frequency IDentification, these transponders come in sizes as small as a grain of sand, can be manufactured for dirt cheap, and hold the potential to expose uncomfortable levels of information about you to whomever is interested in finding out.

From the Boston.com article:
Why is this so scary? Because so many of us pay for our purchases with credit or debit cards, which contain our names, addresses, and other sensitive information. Now imagine a store with RFID chips embedded in every product. At checkout time, the digital code in each item is associated with our credit card data. From now on, that particular pair of shoes or carton of cigarettes is associated with you. Even if you throw them away, the RFID chips will survive. Indeed, Albrecht and McIntyre learned that the phone company BellSouth Corp. had applied for a patent on a system for scanning RFID tags in trash, and using the data to study the shopping patterns of individual consumers.

~MORE~


"TOTAL RECALL" - Arnold Schwarzenegger looks back at his films

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 8:22 PM neilhut

Who remembers that film? Total Recall, where Arnold had been brainwashed about his experiences mining on Mars and was sent back down to earth, given a new life ( and sexy wife ) and had a RFID chip emplaned in his brain to track his movements.

Well it seems that experience did have an impact on the Californian Governor!!

As of yesterday it is now illegal now for California employers to force anyone to have an RFID device implanted under his or her skin as a condition of receiving something—such as a paycheck or government benefits or a trip to Mars..

Arny signed Senate Bill 362 yesterday, prohibiting the forced implantation of RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips. This will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2008. Clearly RFID technology is not, in and of itself, the issue. RFID is a minor miracle in some ways, with all sorts of good uses, but forced 'tagging' of humans would not be good.

I guess that Arny will not have to make a run for it just yet...



Billions of intelligent devices are being released into the environment, each size of grain of sand, with software, hardware, operating ... all » system, memory, wireless communications... as replacement for traditional barcodes. WalMar aleady insists on all boxes being tagged with these RFIDs in warehouses. These chips can also be fused with brain tissue enabling animals to transmit basic thoughts. Human beings are already tagging themselves - to get admission into night clubs for example. That's all in the past. What about the future? Dr Patrick Dixon Futurist seminar on technology trends for Dimension Data. Patrick Dixon is an international conference speaker and author of 12 books including Futurewise.