RFID (microchip) technology

First broadcast on Ex-Pat Radio, Krakow, September 2007

I shall be giving out a few web addresses at the end of this article, so get a pen and paper ready.

Did you know that if you buy a retail product from a large company such as a national supermarket chain, as well as the product, you might also be taking home with you an electronic tag, called a RFID (or radio frequency identification) chip? An RFID is a tiny microchip, stamped onto an increasing number of consumer products at the time of manufacture. It is designed to communicate its exact location to the manufacturer and retailer. For instance, products as diverse as television sets, toothpaste and boxer shorts are now routinely tracked by manufacturers and retailers for logistical, stocktaking and marketing purposes. How common is it? Well, for example, Wal-mart, the largest retailer in the world is encouraging its 20,000 suppliers to incorporate RFID chips into their products at the time of manufacture. Whilst only 600 (or 3%) of these have chosen – or can afford – to do this, there will, no doubt, come a time when Wal-Mart refuses to trade with suppliers who do not put chips onto their products. No chip, no deal.

Well, you know, I’m no businessman and, to be honest, if big business really wants to minutely monitor and track its products from production line to cash till, then fine, whatever makes them happy. Trouble is, that’s just the start of it. Gillette, for example, recently made use of RFID technology in a very un-customer-friendly way. A couple of years ago, in a Tesco supermarket in Cambridge, England, a small, hidden camera was placed opposite the shelf with the Gillette razors. Every time someone picked up a pack, the chip sent a message to the camera which then took a photo of the unassuming shopper. Cameras by the checkout tills then took a photo of each customer in the checkout queue. If a person on the first photo (picking up the razors) didn’t appear on a second photo (paying for razors) by the time he or she left the shop, an alarm was raised and the shopper (or, possibly, thief) apprehended. A pretty clever was of dealing with shoplifters, but do you really want to be photographed every time you take something off a supermarket shelf and treated as a potential thief every time you go shopping?

What is not so well known by the general public is that every time we take home an RFID-chipped product, the chip is still capable of transmitting its location to any interested parties with the necessary receiving equipment. Manufacturers and retailers say that, as there is no commercial value in such longer-term tracking, they would not be interested in putting into place the necessary huge and expensive network of radio receivers. But they would say that, wouldn’t they? And, anyway, how would you like your underwear to be keeping the whole world updated on your movements?

The plain fact is that the technology exists for every single item in the world to be given its own unique item code. Whereas, as present, a particular brand e.g. a tube of Gillette’s 100ml red and blue striped toothpaste, has its own bar code, there are plans to identify each and every single manufactured item with its own unique item code – a different number scanned and tracked for every single tube of toothpaste, pair of socks, DVD or morning-after pill. Now perhaps I’m missing something here but why exactly should a retailer (or anyone else for that matter) wish to be updated minute-by-minute with the location of each particular item unless it foresees a near-future where the product tracking extends beyond the cashdesk, into our car boots and, from there, into our sitting-rooms, kitchens and bathrooms.

To be fair, it is suggested that such technology would enable faulty, or even dangerous goods, to be more easily traced and recalled. Product recalls would no longer be hit-and-miss affairs using full-page scary newspaper ads. Instead, retailers would send messages to the chips on faulty products. What’s that strange beeping sound coming from the fridge? It’s that jar of guacamole dip you bought yesterday, squeaking to be sent back to the Walmart mothership for a bit of TLC. Your food and drink reporting its location and current status back to head office? No problem! Just talk to the Eastman Kodak Company who have filed two patents for the development of ingestible and digestible RFID chips. The idea here is that chips would be put into medicines which, when swallowed, would transmit data about the body’s interaction with the drug. In principle, perhaps a good idea with a possible place in future healthcare. But potentially, a very invasive activity capable of great misuse.

Some people have suggested that pill bottles in medicine cabinets be tagged with RFID devices to allow doctors to remotely monitor patient compliance with prescriptions. All very well, but what if you don’t quote comply unquote? Perhaps granny forgets to take her pills or decides she doesn’t want them this week. Will the doctor, semi-sponsored by multinational drug companies and with his all-seeing electronic RFID eye, decide that granny must take her pills or else … ?

The more you look into radio-frequency technology, the more it seems to be (or soon will be) all around us. For example, the European Central Bank is quietly working to embed RFID tags in the fibers of Euro banknotes. The tag would allow money to carry its own history by recording information about where it has been, thus giving governments and law enforcement agencies a means to literally "follow the money" in every transaction. If and when RFID devices are embedded in banknotes, the anonymity that cash affords in consumer transactions will be eliminated. Of course, the standard defence to such intrusions into private life is “If you’re not a criminal, you’ve nothing to hide.” To this, I have two standard responses. The first is that, quite simply, I do not wish the state (and, increasingly, private business) to intrude any more than is absolutely necessary in my life. You know, not so very long ago, it was considered bad manners to request or to disclose details of one’s private life. Private time and a private life were dearly valued and jealously guarded. Not so now, of course, in the age of the internet and blogosphere. The world changes and, at 40 years old, I’m not that old that I’m not a part of the online revolution. But neither do I consider it strange or unhealthy not to want to share all my private details with the world, especially the world’s governments.

My second response to “Only criminals need fear the state” is that not all of us agree to what should and should not be criminal activities. In an age when western governments seem intent on prying ever-closer into our lifestyles and practices, what is legal today becomes suspect tomorrow and illegal next week. Silent, unnoticed, but ever-watchful technologies like CCTV cameras and, shortly perhaps, RFID chips are pushing us steadily backwards, backs against the walls, the notion of – and need for - private space threatening shortly to become old-fashioned and quaint. Further down the line, a private life may come to be regarded as bizarre or even unhealthy. Oh, I know it’s starting to sound all very Orwellian: Big Brother, Thought Police and all that. And I’ve have to agree with you, were it not for the fact that around 2,000 people have been implanted with RDIF chips. That’s right: microchips implanted inside human bodies. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, doesn’t it? But welcome to the future. Human implants (as they’re called in the trade) are not science fiction, but reality, today, 14th October 2007. Around 2000 people in the world have already chosen to have a microchip about the size of two grains of rice implanted in their bodies. The question is why do they now see themselves as nothing more than a product, an oven-ready chicken for example, to be chipped, scanned and identified by anyone with the technology, money or right connections?

Well, maybe you’ve heard about Baja Beach nightclub in Barcelona, amongst others, that allows you to queue-jump by brushing your microchip-implanted shoulder against an electronic scanner, thereby removing the need to show ID or to pay cash for drinks. By now, you’re probably expecting me to be against this. However, as a lot of people go to nightclubs in search of casual sex, then I’d much rather these Latin morons procreate with each other and leave those of us with more respect for our bodies alone.

More seriously is the issue of personal health and safety. At the moment, one of the biggest current ‘selling points’ of the RFID chip is that, in case of accident or emergency, the already 2,000 or so implanted people are able to be scanned by doctors and nurses who may then view their medical details on an internet database. For this, of course, both patient and hospital must pay subscriptions to the chip’s manufacturer, VeriChip Corporation. Many hospitals in the USA have already signed up to this database and are operating in this manner right now. VeriChip Corporation says that people implanted with microchips stand a better chance of receiving more timely and appropriate healthcare, saving both lives and, for the hospitals and doctors’ practices, time and money. On the face of it, human microchips would thus seem to be a great aid to effective healthcare, in the same way that electronically-tagging your newborn child or aged parent in a rest home would seem to improve personal security. (Again, these are realities right now). But immediately the thought arises in my mind: might there come a time when we will only be given emergency medical treatment, access to natal and childcare units, residential homes etc. on condition that we have been implanted with a microchip or have agreed to put an electronic band around our baby’s wrist? To those of you who find such a reality manifestly totalitarian, well, good: you are entitled to your opinion. It is your right to disagree. For now. But what about tomorrow? And next year? When the state propaganda tells us that we have to have microchip implants because the health services are overstretched and under-funded. Would it be wrong to argue? Would you, in fact, be given the choice? Would you, good and lawful citizen that you are, suddenly find yourself questioning the role and rightful powers of the state, harbouring thoughts of mental and civil disobedience in an effort to maintain your privacy and your humanity? For remember, when only criminals have something to fear, it is as easy as the stroke of a president’s pen to make us all criminals.

Next week, I shall be continuing this article on the erosion of civil liberties and the steady incursion of the state into our day-to-day affairs. In the meantime, if you would like to know more about RFID technology or human microchip implants, you can go to the following websites …

http://www.nocards.org/ (look for the link to RFID on the left)
www.implantedmicrochip.com
www.verichipcorp.com

… or search the internet for ‘RFID’ or ‘microchip implant’, for example, on Wikipedia. You can also write to me, John Marshall, at jpm1234@hotmail.com and read my blog at http://krakowjohn.blogspot.com/.