VeriChips Violate Privacy

VeriChips Violate Privacy

Radio frequency identification chips are ubiquitous little buggers. Most of us already use them
without realizing. If you've ever flown through a toll booth using an
EZPass, quickly purchased gas with ExxonMobils' SpeedPass, or chipped
your French poodle Francesca with an ID tag, you're onboard the RFID
bandwagon.
RFID tags are microchips, generally a wee-bit longer than a rice
grain, that act as transmitters, always ready for a radio wave signal
to pick them up. The tag responds by sending a unique ID code back to
the transceiver, or RFID reader, whichever asked the chip to respond.
Many other uses have already been found for the RFID chips, including
replacing keys for access to top-security labs, Prius car owners to
start their engines, and giant corporations like Wal-Mart employ the
high-tech tool to track inventory.
Soon products we purchase will contain them too. US passports will
come chip equipped and Michelin plans on inserting tags into their
tires. Anonymity and privacy are about to become part of the past.
But now there's a new personal use for the chip on the market-an
eerily invasive method that gets you right under the skin. VeriChip Corporation is the only purveyor of the
VeriChip human ID implant, injected into one's right arm.
Implantable tags for humans are a complete violation of privacy-an
unprecedented way for Big Brother to spy on anyone, anywhere, anytime.
The VeriChip can provide any information you store on it, identity
information, medical history, credit card, bank account info,
or access to your building's office. In the future you won't even have
to bust out your wallet for a Coke at the vending machine. The most
personal information and most menial transactions will be done from
your arm. Nothing could be more convenient.
But having government being able to track my every move anywhere on
the planet doesn't appeal me. Furthermore, I won't have my arm scanned
for others to more easily retrieve my most private records. I
refuse to reduce myself to nothing more than a barcode.
What proves truly troublesome comes in the information VeriChip was
reluctant to disclose about their product. "A hacker can simply walk
by a chipped person and clone his or her VeriChip signal, a threat

already demonstrated by security researches," according to Liz
McIntyre, CASPIAN privacy advocate in a press release on
Spychips.com.
Poof! Instant identity theft. A feat that any laptop
owning geek could pull off with a tight squeeze next to someone in an
elevator, or by 'accidentally' bumping into an unsuspecting passerby
on a sidewalk.
South of the border the chips are being marketed to trace kidnap
victims. Solusat, Mexico's VeriChip distributor has already begun
injecting microchips as a preventative measure under their VeriKid
program. Ironically enough, the flesh-embedded microchip will probably
prove to be more of a kidnapping aid for the suspect rather than
providing emergency ID for the victim. In the same manner in which
cookies attached to a website's browser serve to recognize returning
customers-complete with personal suggestions for CD selections-hackers
can attach cookies to a RFID chip, having the ability to track your
every move.
In medical emergencies, ambient radio waves found in ambulances may
interfere with the VeriChip scanning equipment. Technical
difficulties such as a patient's database being unavailable, or
unknowingly erased and replaced with false information-courtesy of a
hacker-would only have a tragic result.
RFID technology terrifies me. It's unethical, morally wrong, and even worse than what happened during the holocaust.
An ID chip would serve just that purpose, the ability to be tracked.
Only now on a much larger scale.
Even more horrifying, at least for God fearing people such as myself,
many believe VeriChip to be completing a Bible prophecy about a sign
depicting the end times in which all people will receive a mark on
their right hand or forehead, calling it the "mark of the beast," in
which people become no more than a number. 666 to be exact.
But I'm not a number. I'm a person, and I don't want to be scanned or
treated like an item. I don't want to feel traced or followed, without
privacy, without rights. I want the freedom to roam as I please
without fearing someone will hack into my life or track me as easily
as Wal-Mart inventory.