RFID chips: the new frontier?

Susan Kuchinskas at Internet News reports on a growing trend for people to have RFID tags implanted under their skin.

While current use is limited - she cites a figure of an estimated 2,000 people currently implanted with RFID tags - the article rightly points out there is a real security and privacy issues at stake here:

[T]he company mandates that the chips will be implanted in exactly the same place, on the back of your right upper arm. Anyone who knows that can easily bump into you in an elevator and get the read. It’s as easy as picking someone’s pocket: It requires the same amount of proximity for the same amount of time.

It’s long been a concern of civil liberties groups that tracking citizens is an oppressive government’s dream.

What remains to be seen is how popular this technology may become as a voluntary process.

No doubt if this happens, governments will consider the advantages of applying similar tracking to the general population.