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(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Sun, Dec 14th 2003 11:10pm





RFIDs Used To Secretly Track Officials At Tech Summit

from the whoops dept

Every time people write about the potential for RFID chips to be misused, people come along and say that the possibility of them to be misused is pretty slim, and people should just calm down. While we agree that some of the anti-RFID rants have gone a bit overboard, the threat of the technology being secretly used to track people might not be so overblown. A report coming out late last week discovered that badges used at the World Summit on the Information Society last week included RFIDs for tracking attendees. The attendees were apparently unaware the badges included these chips. The article is a little confusing, and does raise some questions. First, since the people who figured this out snuck into the summit, some of the article focuses on the poor security that let these people get official badges with fake identification - and the article shifts back and forth between the two stories as if they're related. The article also doesn't explain how they determined that there was an RFID chip and what it was used for. While the article claims that people at the conference were "tracked" by these chips - it's unclear that's what actually happened. They seem to indicate that attendees could have been tracked - but not that they actually were tracked. Still, it does point out some of the problems with putting RFID chips in everything. Perhaps people need to be looking more seriously at technology that might stop the "bad" aspect of RFIDs, such as a blocker chip that lets users only allow specific RFIDs to work when they want or need them to.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    No Tracking

    identicon
    Beck, Dec 15th, 2003 @ 6:30am

    Reading the article, it sounds like attempted mass hysteria. There is no evidence that tracking actually occurred. They're just saying it could have been done. But to what end? Maybe to automate the process of taking attendance at a meeting? So what? The person's presence is known anyway.

    As far as RFID and personal privacy goes, I'm not sure how an RFID tag on a can of shaving cream is going to give total control of my life to someone somewhere who is going to maintain some kind of database that knows the serial number assigned to my can of shaving cream.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Re: No Tracking

    identicon
    anon, Dec 15th, 2003 @ 8:26am

    Until a terrorist uses a can of shaving cream as some type of bomb (or at least claimed to have) and they come knocking at your door because you just happen to have shopped at the same store and bough the same shaving cream at the terrorist. Maybe you are the Terrorist. humm any unpaid parking tickets?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    This use of RFIDs was simply illegal

    identicon
    Precision Blogger, Dec 15th, 2003 @ 8:45am

    The simple fact remains that Swiss law required the conference to warn everyone that they were carrying RFIDs. I'd like to see the responsible people punished. RFID abuse is going to be very easy to perpetrate! RFIDs are easy to hide in a product or in its packaging.
    - The Precision Blogger
    http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: This use of RFIDs was simply illegal

    identicon
    Jaime, Oct 6th, 2005 @ 4:47pm

    If you think thats scary, Brittan School District somewhere in northern California used an RFID system on their students. No they were not put in their skin but on ID cards that the students had to wear around their necks. Some more information on this is at "http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/RFID/schools/". The last i heard is that the corporation that provided the equipment on a test basis did pull out its equipment for some reason concerning the ACLU and concered parents of the students. Info on that is

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Re: This use of RFIDs was simply illegal

    identicon
    Jaime, Oct 6th, 2005 @ 4:48pm

    If you think thats scary, Brittan School District somewhere in northern California used an RFID system on their students. No they were not put in their skin but on ID cards that the students had to wear around their necks. Some more information on this is at "http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/RFID/schools/". The last i heard is that the corporation that provided the equipment on a test basis did pull out its equipment for some reason concerning the ACLU and concered parents of the students. Info on that is at "http://www.aclu.org/StudentsRights/StudentsRights.cfm?ID=17524&c=161"

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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