CA Bill Limits Skin Implantation of RFID Chips 275
twitter writes with a link to a ZDNet blog entry about a piece of legislation submitted to the California state senate. Drafted by Democratic Senator Joe Simitian, its purpose is to ensure that employers cannot require the implantation of RFID chips as part of employment. It is meeting with scorn from the American Electronics Association. "'Our bottom line is we're opposed to anything that demonizes RFIDs,' she said. 'The technology has been in existence for more than 50 years. It's in more than 1.2 billion ID credentials worldwide. ... We've not seen a single showing of ID theft or harm,' said Roxanne Gould, vice president for California government relations for the American Electronics Association, a high-tech industry group."
RTFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
doesn't mean you can't have it (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't mean you can't have your RFID -- it just means they can't REQUIRE you to have it.
and that's a good thing.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not yet (Score:4, Insightful)
It's in more than 1.2 billion ID credentials worldwide.
In my humble opinion, just because something did not happen yet does not mean that it will not happen in the future
And the summary missing a link to the ZDNet blog.
like ID tattoos? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not primarily about the RFID security. It is about mutilating the staff to save the employer the cost of installing and using a less Nazi-slave-like security system. Seems to me that any doctors that perform the procedure should have their license removed. The tags are hardly justifiable as cosmetic surgery providing any self-image benefit, since the tags aren't supposed to be visible.
Re:Where do the libertarians stand? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never been to California, and I know that it's not perfect, but a good portion of their newer laws make a ton of sense, and should probably be implemented nationwide.
What's sad is that when a government body passes a law that is good for it's people, it's news.
Aero
Re:Good for child molesters (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a bad idea for the same reason that it's a bad idea to be chipping our own citizens:
What happens when people who weren't intended to be reading these chips start using them to track and find the chipped?
Aero
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Read as:
We all stand around here with our eyes closed and our hands over our ears shouting BLABLABLABLABLA.......
Ignorance is bliss!
Re:RTFA? (Score:1, Insightful)
Makes no difference -- if the dizzy bitch can't tell the difference between rfid in a credit card and employer-mandated implantation of rfid chips, probably "for homeland security and for the children", she has nothing to say worth hearing.
I must note that I'm also opposed to anything that demonizes my dick, especially whan chicks are around.
Re:Where do the libertarians stand? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with implanted RFID is that most people underestimate their future costs as a result of an employer implanting the chip. It costs considerably more to remove an RFID, in money and personal risk, and the employer makes no provision to pay for this. Over a lifetime of jobs, once all employers require RFIDs, how many of these chips will need to be implanted? Assume that every time you change employers or even locations for the same employer you'll need new chip implanted. Every time a system is cracked (your individual chip or the outdated technology of the original chip) you'll need another chip implanted. If your company is bought by another company, implant a new chip. Technology changes constantly and employment terms for one entity are becoming increasingly shorter than in the past. Once employers do it, everyone else will want a chip under your skin for credit cards, or even customer memberships. You may have, literally, hundreds of opportunities to be re-chipped. How many chips can you realistically implant in your arm? Will you be forced to remove some of them because they compete with other technology? (The RFID used for toll booths in Maryland and Delaware are incompatible so I have to put one in the glove box to pass through the other because their systems interfere and cannot read their own ID if the other ID is also present.)
How many of these concerns do you think a person who is asked to install a chip has actually considered before they get implanted? The long term issues of chipping and the future costs which will be borne by the person being chipped and they are woefully uninformed. This lack of information availability is exactly what allows larger players in a market to abuse the smaller players. When a company knows the dangers but the employees or customers do not, they can shift future costs to them because they lack this information. The market is notoriously bad at affixing future costs to those who caused the problem (from cancer risks of smoking to pollution of locales to bad economic decisions.)
Its not RFID... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is another case of an industry group going crazy to protect what they perceive to be their interests, when in fact its no challenge to the technology at all, its a challenge to having an employer being able to modify your body.
Re:doesn't mean you can't have it (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the fact that power corrupts and companies tend towards the lowest common denominator when it comes to moral issues like workers rights and just plane ordinary dignity, it is not unreasonable to have a law that requires employers not to treat their workers too much like cattle. If people really did have a choice of not to work for bad companies, I'm sure they would. Until that day comes, we will need legislation protecting us from our employers.
Re:Not yet (Score:1, Insightful)
- Remind me again how you go about proving a negative?
- Correlate all this against the federal requirements that keep credit card companies and banks from making their customers personally responsible for fraud and/or ID theft.
- Now, tell me why I shouldn't fear the repercussions from traveling the world with a chip in my scrotum that identifies me as a WASP from a country that promotes it's own agenda of Global IndUStry with so little regard for rule of law, quality of life, humanitarian concerns or the future... beyond the next 4 quarterly financial reports.
Thanks... I'll take your answer of the air.Auschwitz 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
For one thing, no employer should ever have the right to demand the violation of an employee's body.
Another issue is that this is too damn close to a slave collar. "Property of ACME Inc."
And finally, the RFID tag doesn't stop working once the work day is over, but works 24/7/365.
The problem I see with a ban is that the ban is likely going to be too narrow if it mentions RFID. Unless it's a ban against any permanent or semi-permanent marking of employees, it's going to be worse than nothing, as the wrong judge might rule that since RFIDs were banned, but tattoos were not mentioned, it means that tattoos are implicitly allowed.
Regards,
--
*Art
Require? Force? Oh no, c'mon, who would? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pure coincidence, of course.
Re:doesn't mean you can't have it (Score:4, Insightful)
They can demand all they like (Score:3, Insightful)
Does this really need to be legislated? Eh, no I don't think so.
Re:They can demand all they like (Score:5, Insightful)
What's more frightening (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:RFID rsucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, I found that part of it refreshingly honest. What she's saying is tantamount to something like this:
The nice thing about that is that it means their opinion on any subject can be dismissed out of hand. It's like a binary signal that's always set to one; it carries no data. We already know what they're going to say, whatever the question ("RFID tags are GOOD!") and we know why ("because it make us MONEY!").
It's just rare to see one of these industry pressure groups quite so willing to disqualify themselves from the debate.
Re:like ID tattoos? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are also privacy implications in that this identifies the them as an employee even when they are not at work. (It may even be useful to criminals such as burglers.) Would requiring a barcode tatoo (on a piece of skin not usually covered by clothing) be legal currently?
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Often this kind of legislation has to be extended to barring the technology altogether as corporations or government departments will try to work around the legislative ban forbidding compulsion by the use of various extortion techniques, reduced pay, promotion restrictions, implied threats of dismissal, unlikely employment.
Why wait for the abuses, ban questionable applications of technology to start with.
Just think of the benefits for the weasel in chief, he wont have to wait for you to make a phone call so that the NSA can record you calls, he can just download you sound recording chip when ever you walk past a phone for any questionable anti-republican statements.
Re:They can demand all they like (Score:5, Insightful)
Legislation that hinders companies from exploiting their employees is not a bad thing. The free forces only go so far, and protect only those in a position to say "no". That's not everyone, even if it's you.
Re:This bill and story are histrionics (Score:3, Insightful)
"this has never happened to me, therefore your logic is silly for suggesting it could happen. Further, I am far too talented and independent to ever work somewhere that would do such a thing."
Good for you that your company doesn't demand it. However, that really wasn't parent poster's point, was it? Rather, it was that something we previously assumed would never be required as a condition for employment now is. And there are quite a few large, successful companies (ones that likely employ employees as talented as you) that do.
Better to raise the issue now, discuss it in public and get the word out that some industries are actually opposing the proposed legislation. Given the tenor of privacy issues in the US and UK, it's not such a bad idea to try and deal with this now.
Not too long ago (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't like the laws? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Religious objection: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is this moderated funny... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't remember exactly how this goes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why is this moderated funny... (Score:1, Insightful)