Under the skin

Radio Frequency Identification or RFID tags from VeriChip, which makes implantable chips about the size of a rice grain, have been injected in about 2,000 people around the world. Privacy advocates, however, are concerned that over time the technology will be abused.

In fact, RFID tags that get under your skin have been likened to the "Mark of the Beast" (a sign foretelling the end of time, according to the Christian book of Revelations) in a new bestseller, The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance that has stirred a hornet's nest in the US and is extending its influence on the Net. The book is essentially the same as an earlier one, Spychips, with an added chapter to appeal to Christians.

Now, a VeriChip is typically injected just below the skin. The device, when activated, emits a signal that can be picked up by a special scanner (reader). The concept is similar to RFID tags used to track products, packages and shipments.

The chip could theoretically help in a medical emergency since the device could link a patient to medical records even if the patient is in coma. A few hospitals in or near Boston and Washington have reportedly agreed to use the technology.

But what happens when you have or want to remove the implant? "Removing an RFID implant from a person's flesh requires more than a reverse injection procedure, it actually requires surgery. There would certainly be blood involved, and most likely scarring, as well," says Katherine Albrecht, co-author of the book.

Point taken. However, thousands of companies around the world use RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags to improve internal efficiencies and not for the above-mentioned purposes "" right from WalMart to our own Shopper's Stop, Pantaloon Retail India, ITC and even Sangli-based Chitale Dairy.

In the pharmaceutical sector, for instance, RFID can improve raw material tracking for the audit trail right from the factory floor to avoid counterfeiting of drugs and speeding clinical trials. In the transport sector, RFID can be used in fleet management and so on.

Albrecht is not impressed. "RFID must stop at the store floor. What a company chooses to do in its own warehouse is its own business. Where we draw the line is at tagging individual items or "item-level" tagging. "No company should place RFID tags in or on individual consumer products that customers will interact with," she asserts.

The authors of The Spychips Threat are consumer privacy advocates, and have footnotes on the practices of several companies.

"The documents we cite describe in the companies' own words how they intend to use RFID to keep close tabs on individual consumers..." they write.

But any new technology can be abused. Besides, loss of privacy may be a reasonable trade off for improved service/protection. "If we continue to make this argument... there will be no privacy left to protect," says Albrecht.