Thursday, July 15, 2004

Microchip Tagging Steps into Government

Having already been introduced into the supply chain industry, radio frequency identification has stepped out into new water. A rice grain sized microchip has been implanted into the arms of a number of Mexican officials to grant access to secure locations. RFID has been around but now that it's starting to be used as clearance in government security, it takes on a new life. Both the positive and negative aspects of this technology are pretty obvious. On one hand you have the convenience of not having to carry any sort of pass or commit any code to memory, data can be stored and read inside this implanted chip. On the other hand, you have the privacy concerns, inconvenience in removal, possible biological reactions, danger of having a floating foreign object inside you, and the grizzly issues that may arise if criminals start having to hack off body parts to get access to secure zones.
The more paranoid we are the more paranoid we become. Security concerns beget privacy concerns and those concerns may simply create more suspiscion and cause even tighter restrictions and security. It's the effect of a noose, the harder you struggle against it the tighter it becomes. RFID represents tracking and becomes a part of control by entities other than oneself once introduced to the human medium.

Original article from the AP. Click here or on the title to view the site.

1 comment:

Eric said...

yeah :) i was going to mention that i'd seen one that you brought. it's the potential for things to get out of hand that causes worry. the source is linked in the title of the blog. seems pretty reliable...