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Olympic Tickets Contain Microchip With Your Data
OMNIpotusCOM writes "Tickets to the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies will contain a microchip with information about the ticket holder, including a photograph, passport details, addresses, e-mail, and telephone numbers. The stated intent is to keep troublemakers out of the 91,000-seat National Stadium so that they cannot cause disruptions while China is on world-wide television, but it brings up serious concerns for privacy and identity theft."
Im pro-human right just as much as anyone else who enjoys calling their politician dicks but lets inject some reality here. For those Americans talking about a police state go talk to anyone who is visiting the USA and you will see all the weird and bizarre hoops you now have to jump through that makes a visit to China look like a visit to your local coffee shop. Those who come from Europe, ID cards big brother camera all over the place and knee-jerk politicians bringing in "we have the right to anal probe you if you don't return a book on time" laws. Yes China has issues but western nations should be holding their heads in shame as they let their leaders destroy all the freedoms won by those who have risked lives and limbs over the years because it "doesnt effect me".
Regarding the original story, my biggest worry is how much of the information given to gain tickets will be sold by corrupt officials to countries who think freedom means you are free to scream while getting tortured.
To be honest, I don't see why people are against having chips implanted. People always are howling about Big Brother when you talk about stuff like that, but think about it this way.
As far as I know, Passive RFID chips, the kind that are implanted in pets and, most likely, people, have a "Range" of 10 cm to a few meters. Unless the goverment is going to place readers every 10 feet, you're not going to be tracked. I'm not saying that they won't register every time you enter a building, but they do that now in many places.
I think it's like Credit Cards in a way. I personaly would like to buy stuff and have the store just push a button, it reads my RFID, pops up a photo of me, the store hits "OK" and I walk out. Of course there would be ID theft, but there's that now.
Not sure when it will happen, but I personaly don't see it as the end of all privacy and goodness in the world.