Radioactive Frequency Identification: A Threat to Privacy

Radioactive Frequency Identification: A Threat to Privacy

As technology advances and the government continues to attempt to control us, an idea that was once thought ridiculous is now coming back with full force. The idea of RFID chips (Radioactive Frequency Identification) has already been put into place by many large companies and businesses however most civilians don’t even know they probably own products or clothing with RFID chip implanted in them. The government has not effectively publicized and made the information as available as they should have to educate people about this new technology.

Radioactive frequency identification tags are very similar to barcodes in that they both scan onto computers to read information about a specific product. Experts say that eventually RFID chips will take over barcodes and be used in every store worldwide. RFID chips are also manufactured to use a certain frequency range. “Early RFID pilots have shown that other radio-frequency-based technologies often clash with RFID readers when frequency ranges overlap. As a result, companies have experienced difficulties during RFID pilots with bar-code scanners, cordless phones, push-to-talk devices, wireless networks, security systems, and other RF-based technologies” (Smart 4). As technology advances, we will see how RFID chips will take control of the market take the place of bar codes.

Since the idea of RFID chips are new and haven’t been explored much, we have limited examples and uses available to us. However, we have to accept that RFID is going to take effect because large companies have already begun putting them to use in the products they sell. Eventually almost every product you own, wear or see will be implanted with an RFID chip. Sounds easy and helpful right? It is only going allow the government and monopolies to control customers and take away the little privacy we have. Granneman agrees that ”by implanting RFID chips into everything we buy, the government will be able to track everything we do from which products we bought to where we went and what we did with them” (17) The concern here is that.

“Whatever direction the industry at large takes, your business must operate on the Spider-Man principle: With great power comes great responsibility. Where privacy and data collection are concerned, privacy professionals understand that with more data comes greater responsibility and legal risks. If the industry reaches a point where it can somehow use RFID tags to track a product all the way into consumers' homes and beyond, the industry also must ensure that it's protecting the privacy rights of the individuals who buy that product.