News 8 Reviews
by Devanie Angel

12/15/05

It looks fairly innocuous, a metal-and-plastic square with wires coiled up like an angular snail, a lot like the anti-theft tag you'd find if you pried apart a book you'd just bought at a chain store. But it's a Radio Frequency Identification tag, RFID for short, and each one has a tiny antenna that can broadcast information about the product, or person, to which it is attached. To the industry that makes and markets RFID, it's simply the next logical step from bar codes: providing a cheap, easy way to keep products on the shelves, consumers happy and companies making money. But to many privacy-rights advocates, RFID tags could be the forerunner to nightmare scenarios in which RFID technology is the Trojan horse that brings Big Brother into your home, snooping through your medicine cabinets, fridge and underwear drawer to find out what you do, buy and believe, and, ultimately, what you are...

http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2005-12-15/cover.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp