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The Problems With RFID Chips
from the privacy-schmivacy dept
A topic that's been discussed here a few times, but Security Focus is running a good article summarizing some of the reasons why RFID chips could be bad for privacy. There are clear benefits to the chips, and Wal-Mart's support practically guarantees their success and increasing acceptance. However, the privacy questions aren't getting very much coverage. Of course, a simple way to deal with the privacy question is to make it simple to turn off an RFID chip from broadcasting, or allow consumers to change the information certain chips broadcast to protect their privacy. Even if that did happen, there would still be issues when dealing with things like currency that has RFID chips, making it impossible to buy anything anonymously any more. I'll admit that many of these stories seem a little overblown, but if people don't think about them now, then it'll be tougher to deal with them later.
Reader Comments
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RFID Body Piercings?
Will the new decade see a fad of youngsters implanting RFID chips under their skin, to confuse sensors?
Or this could go the route of advanced bar codes -- in the late 90s, there was a brief fad of bar codes that could store GIF images, but it faded out.
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Currency?
Currency is already identified today - it's called a serial number and it is easily scanned with today's currency readers (plus a number of sites track a bill's ciculation on the internet today). Why would making the serial number electronic make the currency less anonomous. Besides the fact that RFID is unlikely ever to make it into currency, tracking billions of dollars of currency (most of which circulates outside the U.S.) just isn't feasible.
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RFIDiocy
If the EU places RFIDs in bank notes then they're
going to have to make hole-punches illegal.
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