RFID and the controversies surrounding it
Though RFID has been progressing at a decent pace but at times this progress has been marred by various controversies which seem to have affected the manner in which it has been moving ahead. RFID tags have been labeled by some as spy chips which could be a cause of great privacy concerns. This controversy has led to a number of RFID blocking businesses coming up which are offering wallets, purses and host of other things to prevent your details from getting stolen by this technology.
Another controversy which affected RFID was the virus scare which struck in 2006 under which it was said that RFID buffer overflow bug had the capability of infecting airport terminal RFID databases for baggage and accessing passport databases for obtaining the holder’s information but this controversy soon fizzled out since it didn’t have the basis to prove itself as tags are only a storage medium therefore they can only hold the code rather than getting infected, secondly there is a very slim chance that they would affect computers and thirdly the tags have small amounts of memory to cause any virus attack therefore this controversy cooled down very soon. This particular virus scare was followed by a DOS attack scare which stated that RFID tags could be breached causing them to enter an error state and as a result it would enable anyone to change location and destination parameters but this too ended up only as a controversy and nothing happened.
This is just the beginning since we have controversies from religious angle too as some Christians are of the opinion that RFID tagging represents the mark of the beast which has been mentioned in the Book of Revelation and it leaves me a little amused. A book titled ‘The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance’ was released by Albrecht and McIntyre which states that this technology could lead to the fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecies in the Book of Revelation and the argument that RFID is immoral has been supported by the author with public documents, statements and actions but I wont agree with them on this count. It seems the authors of this particular book are playing the card of the religion and if the technology in itself was immoral then why didn’t Pope or any other religious body came forward and protested against the same.
The controversies have also led to a number of anti RFID campaigners give certain statements which will make you feel were such statements warranted? Katherine Albrecht who is the author of Spychips and an anti RFID supported stated that she would not like people to read through her clothes what kind of bra she is wearing. I was just wondering wont the RFID tag be clipped at the sales counter before she is handed out her bra.
Next even the human implantation of chips lead to a lot of debate causing the state of California to pass a law to prevent implantation of RFID tags in human beings and as a result a number of other states are too thinking about such a move. This in itself brought forward the cancer debate regarding which I have talked below.
RFID and controversies seem to go hand in hand and the latest controversy which has struck it is cancer scare which can be caused due to implantable chips. This controversy has started causing troubles for both Verichip (the company which sells implantable chips) and FDA which gave approval for it since one of its officers who gave the approval was hired as an employee for the company after he left FDA. Amidst this mayhem researchers are pointing out that this may not affect human beings and in case anybody is aware about the medical terminologies then its common for inflamed tissues around foreign objects in the body to develop cancerous cells and this does not imply that RFID implants can be blamed for this. To me it looks this controversy would also soon die but till then it has already caused the dent and undue fear among the end users.
Another thing which I would like to highlight is that besides controversies the technology is facing certain security risks too where illicit tracking of RFID tags is taking place and in case of world readable tags it brings up risks with respect to both personal privacy and military security. One more matter of concern is global standards since frequencies which are used in USA are as of now incompatible with Japanese or European standards and up till now there are no universal standards in this respect therefore this could lead to problems with regards to its faster implementation since barcodes have universal standards and as a result are implemented at a number of places.
If we sit back and think about it deeply then why is it that RFID continues to be plagued with controversies? If you think it’s a new technology then you are wrong since it has been around for almost five decades and was implemented in World War II. I believe the major problem is the lack of awareness among the public with regards to the technology and this seems to be creating most of the troubles. It would be better if people are educated about the technology so that they can take a better decision since an informed customer can take better decisions and it would surely bring down the level of confusion and controversies associated with it plus a universal body needs to be established so that universal standards can be set up in this respect and ensure that the technology is adopted whole heartedly.