RFID chips - are they the devil’s mark?

For the past thirty years, information technology has continually advanced, while costs have fallen considerably, causing many questions to be addressed about the growing risk to our guaranteed right to privacy. These rights are in danger due to data that is digitized, transmitted, and stored with the possibility that this information could be processed from several interconnected sources. Nanotechnology, while not the only technology at issue, potentially plays an important role insofar as it has the ability to increase processing power.

Such technology is already available in the form of RFIDs (Radio Frequency Identification Devices) that contain a transmitter and logical circuits. These chips are used to transmit information, often through an electronic product code, that carry enough bits to identify every individual object manufactured in the world. These chips can run without batteries and their range can vary from a few centimeters to more than twenty meters if a power supply is used. Their sub-millimeter scale size has allowed them to be implemented for use as badges to access systems and for short-range identification helping to track inventory, provide anti-theft protection and in the identification of animals. The unit price of the devices is inexpensive are expected to fall in the next few years to little more than the cost of a label.

However, at the end of 2003, about thirty US associations wrote a manifesto on limiting the use of RFIDs stating the dangers of RFIDs as they can be easily hidden and while active they continue to provide information on the person carrying them including how much money the person carries. Additionally, they claim that these chips are enabled to cross-reference information such as checking the identity of the person carrying the object, such as a bank card but they state that more subtle combinations are possible using insignificant information.
 

Associations generally propose that the use of RFIDs should be regulated and voluntary even to the point of removing the RFID is so desired by the user.  On the other hand defenders of the technology point out their limited range, and the fact that RFIDs cease to operate at the door of a shop. However, distrust has been fuelled by a series of semi-official tests carried out on consumers causing a public outcry that resulted with the companies involved scaling back their projects.

The basis for fair use of RFIDs is more or less set, consisting in a balance between taking benefit from their technology while insuring an individual’s right to privacy. However, for these standards to work one must realize that the implementation of such enforcement is not without cost and user control may not be easy.

One of the major current concerns is the existing technique for implanting RFIDs in the human body. Voluntary tests on humans has already begun and as of 2004, an estimated one thousand people were implanted with these devices. The product being used in humans is called the Verichip and is made by Applied Digital Solution which also sells the Digital Angel device that will at some point interface with the GPS network to locate its bearer. Like the satellite tracking devices these chips will make it possible for the government to mark individuals for surveillance purposes. In some cases such as medical monitoring of patients with Alzheimer’s Disease or to protect children in the event that they go missing this technology may seem like a godsend but how many of us want someone to be hone in on us at any given moment of any day without our consent. Another function of the chip could be to make secure payments without fear of identity theft since the chip is implanted beneath the skin. This seems particularly scary to me since I have been warned since I was small child about the Biblical mark of the beast which will be an implanted in the hand or on the forehead during the time that the anti-Christ comes to power. This religious aspect can be looked at on numerous websites or in the Bible, Book of Revelation (13:11, 16, 17). “Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon [...]. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

This quote shows us that the fears generated by these new technologies trigger emotions that may be deep-seated in the human psyche, particularly the reservoir of symbols, images, and archetypes linked to the sacred. So my warning would be this: think twice about these technologies and carefully analyze their advantages and possible dangers before allowing yourself to have something like this implanted in your body.

[tags]RFID, Radio Frequency Identification Device, Devil’s mark, danger, invasion of privacy, implantable device, Human monitoring, mark of the beast, ani-Christ, medical monitoring, access badges, pet identification chips[/tags]