27 June 2003

RFID Chips Are Here

Bar codes are going out and RFID chips are in. Tiny chips that can act as transponders (transmitter/responders) that can brodcast a unique ID number back to a transreceiver. Typically, the distance is limited to several feet but increasing the range is possible with a more sensitive RFID receiver.

A Security Focus column by Scott Granneman details how our privacy is at stake with the embedding of these microchips into virtually any physical object.

Michelin, which manufactures 800,000 tires a day, is going to insert RFID tags into its tires. The tag will store a unique number for each tire, a number that will be associated with the car's VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). Good for Michelin, and car manufacturers, and fighting crime. Potentially bad for you. Who will assure your privacy? Do you really want your car's tires broadcasting your every move?

The European Central Bank may embed RFID chips in the euro note. Ostensibly to combat counterfeiters and money-launderers, it would also enable banks to count large amounts of cash in seconds. Unfortunately, such a move would also makes it possible for governments to track the passage of cash from individual to individual. Cash is the last truly anonymous way to buy and sell. With RFID tags, that anonymity would be gone. In addition, banks would not be the only ones who could in an instant divine how much cash you were carrying; criminals can also obtain power transceivers.

But let's not stop there. Others are talking about placing RFID tags into all sensitive or important documents: "it will be practical to put them not only in paper money, but in drivers' licenses, passports, stock certificates, manuscripts, university diplomas, medical degrees and licenses, birth certificates, and any other sort of document you can think of where authenticity is paramount." In other words, those documents you're required to have, that you can't live without, will be forever tagged.

Consider the human body as well. Applied Digital Solutions has designed an RFID tag - called the VeriChip - for people. Only 11 mm long, it is designed to go under the skin, where it can be read from four feet away. They sell it as a great way to keep track of children, Alzheimer's patients in danger of wandering, and anyone else with a medical disability, but it gives me the creeps. The possibilities are scary. In May, delegates to the Chinese Communist Party Congress were required to wear an RFID-equipped badge at all times so their movements could be tracked and recorded. Is there any doubt that, in a few years, those badges will be replaced by VeriChip-like devices?

Scary stuff, eh? Soon, all of those employee badges that get you through the doors of your work site will have these smart chips in them. If only Orwell were alive to see that his '1984' world wasn't even as totalitarian as what is now becoming.

Comments

i m making final year engg. project and my topic is local positioning system. i m using smart labels and i want details abut how to interface it with transreceiver and what is data format