VeriChip targets DC market for its RFID implants
Tim Finin, 1:00pm 15 March 2006The Washington Post has an article that describes how VeriChip is marketing it’s implant RFID chips to the DC metropolitan area.
Use of Implanted Patient-Data Chips Stirs Debate on Medicine vs. Privacy
… “The two D.C. residents are among just a handful of Americans who have had the tiny electronic VeriChip inserted since the government approved it two years ago. But the chip is being aggressively marketed by its manufacturer, which is targeting Washington to be the first metropolitan area with multiple hospitals equipped to read the device, a persuasive factor for Fischer and Hickey. Within weeks, the first hospital is expected to announce plans to start routinely scanning all emergency-room patients.”
It is going to be an uphill battle to convince people to do this.
“The company has sold about 2,500 chips worldwide for use in people, and several hundred have been implanted, including about 100 in the United States, spokesman John Procter said. So far in the United States, however, most of the chips have been implanted into the company’s own employees. Suspecting that many people are hesitant to get the chips until more emergency rooms are able to scan them, the company has begun giving scanners to hospitals for free, Procter said.”
Two issues that should make us wary are privacy and security. The privacy issues are well known, but here is also a serious security problem. VeriChip is also marketing implanted RFID tags for controlling access to secure or sensitive areas.
The company is, however, marketing the devices to limit entry to secure facilities. The Mexican government is using the implants like key cards for high-security offices. And CityWatcher.com of Cincinnati, which stores surveillance-camera footage from around the country, recently started using the chips to control access to tapes. Bars in Spain and Amsterdam, meanwhile, are offering the chips to patrons who want quick entry and to run electronic tabs.
But, it turns out to be easy to skim and clone a verichip, as cq.cx demonstrates:
… “Verichip markets their product for access control. This means that you could have a chip implanted, and then your front door would unlock when your shoulder got close to the reader. Let us imagine that you did this; then, I could sit next to you on the subway, and read your chip’s ID. At this point I can break in to your house, by replaying that ID. So now you have to change your ID; but as far as I know, you cannot do this without surgery. …â€
Ebiquity Blog
May 11th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
RFID chips, are nothing more than a scam to make money. These companies like Verichip, are frauds who have no respect for human life, even if it means people
getting cancerous tumors from these foreign objects. These inventors of RFID chips should inject theirself, and leave the rest of society alone. These would be true individuals who work for “Satan” Revelation 13:16-18. The people of the world need to stop living in fear of these companies and governments, and take a stand of truth for once in your life, or these pagan thieves will try to control your life and the life of your children and generations to come. Since there is no one living on the earth today, that is better than another, there would be no reason to be afraid of anyone. God, has allowed people, self-defense if harmed, so don’t be afraid of your government or these RFID companies. The government works for the people, not the other way around. Learn to protect your “Constitutional Rights.” Abolish the IRS & Federal Reserve and it will help the american people come out of a future “Recession.”