Thursday, May 13, 2004

RFID Chip Implants Sighted

Get chipped, then charge without plastic -- you are the card: ". . .there's the important and deeply scientific experiment being conducted among the barely clothed patrons of Baja Beach Club in Barcelona. They're getting electronic credit cards implanted under their skin.

Beautiful club-goers have a problem: If you're going to wear a halter top and micro-skirt, there's not much of anywhere to put a wallet. And who wants to carry a purse when you're there to dance? Luckily, a company called VeriChip this year unveiled a solution based on radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology.

It's a slender glass capsule about as long as a dime is wide. Inside sits a computer chip, which stores a unique code that can identify an individual -- sort of an electronic Social Security number. The capsule also holds a tiny antenna, which can radio that code to a receiver many feet away."

While I can appreciate the dilemma of not having a place to stick your credit card when you are wearing just a bathing suite, I don't know how keen I would be to having an RFID inserted in my body. Why not just use a thumb print? Most of us already have thumbs, they uniquely identify us, and the technology to take a thumb print has been around for years. Stealing a thumb is pretty complicated too.

The problem with an RFID is that someone else at the dance club could get their own reader (with more power for better range) and just dance around the dance floor and collect other people's numbers. Makes picking pockets a whole lot easier if you don't actually have to touch the person.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No one is implanting a chip in me.