RSS Feeds: RFID Tags and Big Brother
If ever there was a reason you might consider disappearing or vanishing without a trace, you may want to add the RFID tag or RFID chip to your possible list of reasons. What started out as pretty good idea for supply and inventory tracking has turned into something far worse.
Privacy and Other Matters
One of the reasons I appreciate living where I live today is that I don't have to worry about the small things that can happen to erode my personal freedoms away. Privacy is just one item, on the tip of a huge iceberg of person freedoms, residents of the more developed countries are losing more of each day.
RFID tags are being used in so many ways they shouldn't be. I don't think I can even begin to list all of the ways they're being used, but I'll list what I know about offhand:
- passports
- theft security
- animal tracking
- inventory control and tracking
- credit cards
Luckily, there are groups of people standing up against the organizations that want to use the RFID tags in the wrong ways. Human tracking and cashless payments are two of them. I don't know about you, but it smells way too much like the mark of the beast to me. Call me paranoid.
Legitimate Uses
Don't get me wrong. There are legitimate uses for RFID tags, but who gets to determine where and when they're going to be used? We already know how inept ALL the governments of the world are when it comes to enforcing their laws.
I have nothing against RFID tags being used to prevent shoplifting and for providing information you willingly want to provide. It's the unwilling part that I have an issue with. Some RFID chips store information that can easily be hacked into by someone using an unauthorized or custom-made RFID reader. The US Department of Homeland Security already has its hands full with the things they think are important as it is right now. Imagine what would happen if terrorists learned how to access all the data on any RFID chip?
An Orwellian Future
When I think of RFID tags, I think of "1984", "Brave New World" and "Equilibrium". Big brother has many faces and I'm afraid that RFID is just one of them.
Add RFID tags to video surveillance, red light cameras, credit reporting, wire tapping and other things I can't even think of right now and it all adds up to a society I don't want to live in. I'm thankful that I'll probably be old and ready to die before all those things make it to the part of the country I currently live in.
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That's why I am always of the opinion that the more inefficient the government is, the better from the citizens' point of view – and indeed from the nation's point of view.
As scary as it sounds, it does seem like all of us are constantly being monitored. Just in offices, everyone has a surveillance camera on them, monitoring if we are doing our job. There's nothing wrong with surveillance, but some people take advantage of it for their twisted intentions.
Yes RFID chips could signal the end of privacy as we know it. But as a father of 2 little girls I wish I could implant a tracking chip under their skin. I have nightmares about sexual predators taking my kids!
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But what if sexual predators could access files and actually USE tracking chips to FIND kids to steal? I'm sure there will be "smart criminals" who learn how to de-activate the chips after stealing kids.