Radio Frequency Identification Chips

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Radio Frequency Identification Chips

The Food and Drug Administration has considered approving radio frequency identification chips or RFID chips that are implanted under the skin that will hold information about the person that the chip is implanted into. Would you like to have all of you personal information about your entire life on a tiny computer chip, the size of a grain of rice, implanted under your skin? The FDA should not approve the implantation of RFID chips in humans. First, the problem with RFID chips will be discussed and second, the possible solutions to RFID chips will be discussed.

The problem with implanting the RFID chips, or the VeriChip, is privacy. Every detail of your life is defined on this chip. According to David Killick of The Press, a newspaper in New Zealand published in May of 2003, details such as your social security number, your drivers license number, and even all of your birth information from your certificate are included on the chip. It also includes all of y our immunizations, all of your doctor appointments and basically anything important to your health and your personal life. It includes all of your monetary account numbers and balances, such as savings accounts, checking accounts, and even credit card accounts. All those accounts that are still in existence, and even those that have been closed.

With as important and personal details as theses on this chips, strong security is needed on the chips. RFID chips do not have enough security installed in them. According to The Washington Post as newspaper out of Washington, D.C., published in October of 2004, hackers can easily breach the security barriers of the safeguard that is already ...

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...in humans. These chips are already being used in animals as tracking devices, used by their owners, to track their whereabouts. But humans should not be tracked everywhere they go, especially with all of their personal information in one area. And even though the cost is not that high, only one hundred and fifty dollars to two hundred dollars per person, many people do not see a need for them. Some people feel they are just another way for the government to control us by keeping track of everywhere we go and everything we do at any time, day or night.

In conclusion, RFID chips pose a major privacy threat to those involved. Stronger safeguards and security systems would be the only way to approve of these chips. The FDA should not approve of RFID chips. Privacy breaching is the main reason that RFID chips should not be implanted into humans.

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