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CA Bill Limits Skin Implantation of RFID Chips

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."

4 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Dear Roxanne Goebbels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dear Roxanne Goebbels,

    Please, be advised that although the Arabic number system had been in use for centuries without significant bugs or security compromises, the abuse of the Arabic number system in the form of tattooing Arabic numbers onto the wrists of European Jews became problematic.

  2. Re:Huh? by binkzz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There's also a very big difference between choosing to have anything implanted, or being forced to have anything implanted.

    That she wants to dedemonize RFID chips is fine with me, but at the moment she seems to support forced implantations of the chips. It's really only one step away from no longer being able to buy food without an implanted chip under your hand or forehead.

    --
    'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
  3. Re:like ID tattoos? by Leebert · · Score: 3, Interesting

    passive RFID provides static identification only, not authentication


    This is incorrect. Some passive RFID systems do challenge-response authentication. See Exxon's SpeedPass. It does it BADLY, but it does it.
  4. Re:doesn't mean you can't have it by sumdumass · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No, his concept isn't some liberal mistake. I don't even think it is liberal.

    You see, the free market concept assumes people are free to chose what they want to purchase. Now, even in IT, there are only so many jobs at so many places so if they are all filled in my town, I either have to move or find another. Now notice I didn't place a third option of not working in there. that is because you don't have that option as a realistic choice. Sure, you could draw unemployment for a while, spend your savings down but in the end, you will HAVE to find a job or dies. And that is only if you don't goto jail or something first.

    Anytime you take the option to walk away out of the picture, you cannot have a free market. This is the same thing with gasoline, a certain amount in todays age has to be spent on transportation for all but a small set of people. there is nothing free about the gas market except they are free to exploit your needs. Now, these needs can be artificial yet still be enough to screw the idea of a free market. Mass or public transportation for instance, It needs to purchase gas in order to function. It will have to raise fair to cover expenses when they prices go up, so even if you do have an alternative to buying it directly, you would still be force to pay indirectly.

    Now, with jobs this is no different. In most areas, they have reserved sections of the town to provide the bulk of the jobs and with the smaller towns, you have to go outside in order to get a job that pays a decent amount of wages. Most jobs now require a certain skill set (like IT) where you cannot just up and learn another in the time it takes to quit one job and goto the next even if it is outsid your skill set. When a person is forced to work or live in poverty or die, you cannot consider that a free market. Even if you manage to find one example where it might be. When a person is forced to have years of training to do a certain line of work you cannot expect them to find another job in another market area because he disagrees with a policy, it would take longer to train then it would take for the policy they disagree with to be implemented. They would be forced to adapt to the policy. Again, it isn't a FREE market by any means. And that is the entire point of the GP. If you think it is a free market, then you just aren't looking at it good enough.