Consumer privacy and the world of RFID chips

Invasion of privacy, with cameras on every street corner, is going another step further. Futurists believe that that one day our every move will be monitored by RFID, or radio frequency identification.

If you haven’t heard of it, you should become familiar with RFID technology because you'll be hearing much more about it in the near future, as more and more people start carry chips with them. Discretely, the government and corporations have started mandating chips routinely, without most people realizing it. Take for instance, a notification from the Royal Bank of Canada, having worldwide significance: There is a deadline for all Canadian Financial Institution's to have their clients credit cards changed to the new CHIP technology by 2011. Also effective October 2010 clients that do not have the CHIP on their credit card will no longer be covered by the Visa Zero Liability Policy.

Chip cards, also known as "smart cards," are being introduced around the world as a long-term replacement for magnetic-stripe cards. This is because they're the safest, most secure technology available today to protect your payment information and prevent fraud.

Many countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia have already moved, or are moving, toward this new card technology. We expect merchant terminals and bank machines across Canada to become equipped to read chip cards over the next several years. Although banks say the new cards are much safer, hackers show CBC show that anyone can get hold of your information.

Anyone can buy an RFID credit card reader online, where second-hand units sometimes sell for under $10, and start scanning cards in public — without cardholders knowing.

RFID “chips” are being placed in credit cards, passports, national ID and driver's license. Futurists say once everything is on this card, the only thing to render a person a non-citizen is to turn the chip off. It will take away the ability to buy food and necessities. It can possibly take away our privacy and anonymity in its entirety. Katherine Albrecht, an advocate of consumer privacy, founded a group in 1999 called CASPIAN – Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering. A graduate of Harvard, with a doctorate in education, Albrecht has written several books and has made thousands of appearances in America and Europe doing what she does best – educating people. She also promotes privacy-friendly internet search engines such as Startpage, as opposed to Google who maintains records. If surfing the web in anonymity is important to you, this may be the site for you. Elliot Maxwell, a research fellow at Pennsylvania State University, brings up concerns, such as the fact that data from microchips can be easily intercepted and misused by thieves.

As RFID goes mainstream and the range of readers increases, it will be "difficult to know who is gathering what data, who has access to it, what is being done with it, and who should be held responsible for it."

As with all new technology, RFID can be lifesaving or life harming depending on how it is used. It is not a matter of "if" it will be used, but "how". Who will monitor it? Its benevolent use is seen in libraries to keep track of books, and in stores to keep track of inventory. But when the tags leave the store still active, this changes the purpose. It is possible to see RDFID embedded in the very fibres of our clothes, insides our walls and appliances at home, inside our bodies in the form of medication, and still some believe it can be used to scan the inside of purses or homes. Citizens want the right to choose, given a balanced overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the technology.

This right to choose would require transparency from the side of the RFID systems operators about what data is captured at what point in time and at what place, and for what purpose. Such transparency would be important to develop trust and cooperation.

It would seem that transparency and choice go hand in hand with consumer trust.