One nation under God

Liberty and Justice for All

2006-03-12

Tracking and Monitoring With RFID Tags

A security company in Ohio has requested that two of its employees be implanted with electronic ID tags. A public school in California required its students to wear a badge containing an RFID chip. And there's a nationwide plan to implant the homeless with RFID chips before they're allowed to stay in homeless shelters or qualify for assistance. The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to mandate the chipping of pets and livestock. The plan to chip all Americans for tracking and monitoring has begun.

RFID tags are microchips that transmit radio signals with a unique ID code. Costing up to 50 cents each, but with prices now dropping, it will soon be cost-efficient to put RFID tags in almost anything that costs more than a dollar.

RFID tags have been used in pet ID tags, toll booth passes, airport luggage, port operations, military supply shipments, casino employee uniforms, and would probably work well in corporate PCs, networking equipment, and handhelds. These uses of RFID chips seem to reasonably balance security and privacy.

Other planned uses for RFID tags are extremely disturbing to me.

Combining smart cards and RFID chips so I do not have to use cash or coins may be convenient but I'm not thrilled about targeted ads popping up as I walk through a store.

It may help car manufacturers and fight crime but do I really want my Michelin tires broadcasting every move I make?

Embedding RFID chips in the euro note may combat counterfeiters and enable banks to count large amounts of cash in seconds, but would also allow governments to track cash - the last anonymous way to buy and sell. And wouldn't criminals using RFID readers see how much cash I'm carrying?

There's talk about placing RFID tags into not only paper money, but drivers' licenses, passports, stock certificates, manuscripts, university diplomas, medical degrees,licenses, and birth certificates.

Like Wal-Mart, manufacturers plan to tag their products. There's no law requiring a label that an RFID chip is in a product. Once I buy my clothes, food, toilet paper, tools, and razor blades tagged with RFID chips, paid for with RFID-tagged money, and get into my car with RFID-tagged tires, I can be tracked anywhere I go and everything I own will be tracked.

Let's not be duped into the claim of solely increasing security with RFID chips. There are benefits in its limited use but the possibilities with this new technology are endless and frightening. We, The People, must monitor our servant government, and not willingly be monitored by.      

Gina Weiss


Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
- Ronald Reagan


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