Euro Notes May Be Radio Tagged

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the unintended-consequences dept

While the US is working on redesigning our currency yet again to stop counterfeiting (this time we get color!), folks over in Europe are exploring the idea of sticking RFID tags onto their money in order to prevent counterfeiting, while also making it easier for banks to count money quickly. On the counterfeiting side, this might sound like a good idea, but it does raise some of the same privacy issues that RFID tags in clothing would raise. Imagine the street criminal who gets his hands on an RFID reader, and can take a reading of everyone walking down the street to determine how much cash they’re carrying in their wallet. Not that there aren’t plenty of good reasons to look into this, but I’m wondering how carefully it’s been thought through.