** This thread discusses the article: Big Brother Gets Under the Skin **
** This thread discusses the Content article: Big Brother Gets Under the Skin **
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** This thread discusses the Content article: Big Brother Gets Under the Skin **
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Man, that would make kidnapping expensive, right?!?No, not really. According to the Reuters news item I read, the readers cost as little as $50. And, while the item didn't say it, history suggests that, as with most technologies, that price will probably come down. After all, it's not big corporations use of RFID (not embedded in humans) that I was making fun of. Some people, some of them teenagers, are using this to provide an easier way to log into their home computers or unlock the doors of their homes.
Joel, are you a parent?
Look at some milk cartons. These are not jokes. How many children could be found if RFID was used?I was trying just to be funny, but since you want to get serious, no I'm not now, nor have I ever been a parent, so it's difficult to say how I would feel if I were. My current thinking is that my concern for my child's privacy and the dignity of his or her body would outweigh my fears that my child would be kidnapped and an embedded RFID chip might--only might--do a little to help find him or her. (It would help only if the kidnapper, with child in tow, passes close enough to a reader owned by a law enforcement agency or someone who will report the reading.) Then again, I know that if I were a parent I would love my child very much, so who knows if I'd be able to view the issue as dispassionately if I were a parent as I can when I'm not.
My daughter is diabetic and I would have gladly implanted her with chip. Compromising a little privacy with life saving is a fair trade-off in my view.Yes, it would provide some benefit, but it's dependent on the medical facility she's taken to having an RFID reader handy and on some universal standards on how to code medical conditions being set so that a medical facility anywhere will be able to read and interpret the data stored on the RFID chip. Existing, non-electronic MedicAlert(R) bracelets can also identify her condition and they are universally readable without the need for an RFID reader. And, if the MedicAlert Foundation wanted to go high tech (for all I know they already have), they could put an RFID chip in their bracelets to complement the printed information engraved on them, allowing them to store more complete medical data than what can go on the bracelet now. While privacy is a concern for me, it's not the only one. The truth is I'm a major wimp when it comes to medical procedures. Any time you pierce the skin you open an avenue for infection, including some of the antibiotic-resistant infections that are evolving these days. If there's another way to accomplish the same benefit, I'd rather not have something placed under my skin, but that may just be the wimp in me talking.
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