RFID threatens consumer privacy

Futurists believe that one day the public's every move will be monitored by radio frequency identification (RFID), as more and more people start carrying chips with them, writes Digital Journal.

The government and corporations have started mandating chips routinely, without most people realising it. For example, a notification from the Royal Bank of Canada states there's a deadline for all Canadian Financial Institutions to have their clients credit cards changed to RFID technology by 2011.

Elliot Maxwell, a research fellow at Pennsylvania State University, says: “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."

IBM researchers in the UK are developing billboards with sensors that detect RFID signals as a cardholder passes by, and can tap into personal information such as name, age, gender and shopping habits, states Pop Sci.

From there, the billboard could display an ad that is customised particularly for that person, ostensibly even calling his or her attention to it by name. It is expected to draw the ire of privacy groups who will view it as an unsolicited extraction of personal data.

But IBM and advertising groups view it as a way to make advertising more relevant to the user, thus making consumers' lives easier and more efficient as they would no longer be bombarded by advertising that doesn't apply to them.

Security researcher Chris Paget demonstrated, at both Black Hat USA and Defcon 18, the lack of security in RFID technology used in US passports and driver's licences, says Dark Reading.

Paget has managed to hack into an RFID chip from 217 feet (66 meters) away using a homemade RFID reading system.

Paget says his research was all about proving that these RFID tags could be read from afar and how it poses a serious privacy risk for users. "It's inappropriate to put this technology in ID cards,"' he claims.