Social Consequences and Effects of RFID Implants?

kramdam asks: "Even with all the talk about privacy and security, there seems to be a growing community of people who are implanting themselves with RFID chips. Being a developer myself, I am intrigued about building applications and solutions that will open my doors, unlock my car, log me on to my computer and control home automation. I'm seriously considering jumping into this head first, being on the bleeding edge, and going with an implant. I have looked at resources like Mikey Sklar's site, and Amal Graafstra's site, since they are two pioneers on this subject. For research, I have started TaggedLife to document my own journey. I was wondering what the Slashdot community think about this. What do you think are the social, security, privacy, and health risks associated with this? What are the pluses? Would you do it?"

Easily cloned

[jack_n_jill]

Passive RFID tags are easily cloned. Someone standing near you can scan your tag and have a clone. Takes about two seconds. You might as well leave the keys in your car and all your doors unlocked. There is zero security.

Life imitates art

[digitalhermit]

It seems that this is one of those cases where the crazy science fiction authors have pegged it.

On the one hand, there's this notion that crime will be a thing of the past because at any moment we can see where everyone is. Want to go hiking and then swimming and don't want to carry around a wallet? No problem since every store can immediately verify your ID and credit as you enter the building. Super conveniet. When you step in your car it will automatically adjust the seats, tune your 6 presets, adjust the volumes, load your phone number list into the car phone, queue your MP3s. Online shopping will be a breeze since your computer will have scanners to verify your ID point-to-point. Identity theft? No longer possible. And crime will be down. Want to figure out who graffitied a wall? Just check the perimeter logs and find the ID. Want to see who should/shouldn't be in a building? Check the entrance and hallway logs. After all, if you've got nothing to hide, why should you worry?

Then there's that other side... No implant? Then no credit for you. No purchases, no vending machines, no access to the school. Or maybe it will be an onerous process... Fill out a form, wait a day or two. In the clubs the twenty-somethings will politely turn away when you bring out *cash* to pay for a drink. What sort of freak pays with cash anymore?

But more than likely we'll accept the intrusions into our privacy because it'll be do damned convenient. We pay for our groceries and medications with credit cards, shop online for books (ohmygod!) with credit cards, attend subversive movies such as Jarhead or Fahrenheit 911 or Narnia and pay with credit cards, we book hotels, rent cars to travel to Omaha and Key West and pay with credit cards... RFID is just the next logical step.

(I just saw Gattaca so I'm in that sort of mood)

Paranoid hypochondria

[Anonymous Coward]

Breast implants [fda.gov]

The FDA pulled silicone implants to study them in detail. The claims of killing people were thoroughly debunked. Silicone breast implants that leak need to be removed, but about the worst thing that happens after a leak is having little lumps of silicone under the skin that move around.

This is psychologically disturbing in the extreme. Naturally, women who had this happen and then got sick for other reasons blamed the leak.

Saline breast implants are a genuine health risk if something grows in them because they aren't properly sterilized, but this is true of any surgical implant. Surgery isn't a walk in the park.

Silicone is essentially a neutral substance for biological processes. It just doesn't do anything. Silicon, like the casing on an RFID chip, is *completely* neutral. We've been putting things made out of glass in people for decades.

In an unusual circumstance, like a shattering blow to the area where the chip is implanted, the chip might break or be forced through the deep fascia, causing injury. Any such blow would cause far more serious damage anyway. The chip wouldn't be a major factor.

The radiation involved is lower than environmental levels were before humans evolved. No problem there.

The point I'm making here is that for both breast implants and these chips, the risks of the implants are no greater than the risks of surgery in general. You could have your arm cut open and stitched closed, with nothing else done, and you'd have about the same rate of dangerous complications. That's the best you can hope for with any surgical procedure.

Re:Why?

[Skreems]

I know you're joking, but some car company pulled all their fingerprint-activated models from circulation after thieves in asia started cutting off hands in order to steal the cars. it's a very real problem.

Poor tradeoff

[renoX]

OK so you don't need keys, what happens when their is a power failure?
You're locked out.
To prevent this, you have to have keys stored somewhere to avoid the problem, the same thing you do when you use keys to avoid being stuck when you loose your keys, so there is no safety advantage.

For me this looks like a stupid thing to do, the only "real" advantage is the 15min of fame of having implants, it would be much more intelligent to use watch or mobile phones to do the same thing..

Bad move

[mrpickle2u]

I use to sell RFID. The implantable IDs have a tendencey to migrate. You cannot control where they go and could end up in your heart. If you are truly concerned with universal access I would suggest looking at a Bluetooth Headset, or having the RFID device mounted in a ring or other jewelery. To the poster that suggested that you could mount it in an earing hole, The read distances for the implantable devices is typicaly less than 3" and you would look funny putting you ear to every lock. The RFID devices are a chip with a small copper winding for an antenna encapsulated in a glass tube I dont think it would explode in an MRI but there is enough airspace between the glass and the tag itself that it is easily crushed.