Catherine Albrecht answers questions about RFID

http://www.spychips.com/faqs.html
Frequently Asked Questions About RFID

Q. What is RFID?
A. Radio Frequency IDentification is an automatic data capture technology that uses tiny tracking chips affix
chips can be used to track items at a distance--right through someone's purse, backpack, or wallet. Many of th
manufacturing companies would like to replace the bar code with these "spy chips," meaning that virtually ev
people wearing and carrying those items--could be remotely tracked. There is currently NO REGULATION p
abuse of this technology. >> Learn More about RFID

Q. What do RFID chips and tags look like?

A. RFID chips are usually attached to antennas. The chip and antenna combination is called a "tag." RFID tag
and color. We have pictures of several of these chips online:
Click here for images of RFID tags
Click here for images of an RFID tag used in a Gillette Mach 3 Razor package

Q. What companies make or use RFID devices?

A. We have a list of 103 companies that were sponsors of the MIT Auto-ID Center as of June 25, 2003. The M
organization that developed the infrastructure for RFID with the help of global businesses like Gillette, Unile
expect that these companies will be among the first to adopt the technology.

Q: How can I tell if there's an RFID chip in my ____?

A: Since no law requires manufacturers to tell you when they've put an RFID chip into a product or its packa
average consumer to know if a product contains a chip is to see it with his or her own eyes. (Or you can inves
costly RFID readers.) The good news is that most RFID devices in commercial use today have a fairly consp
the size of a fingernail to the size of a full-sized sheet of paper. If you suspect that an item contains a hidden R
search tips: Look closely at any paper labels or stickers on the object. Peel them off and hold them up to the l
metallic lines converging on a central point? If so, you may be looking at the antenna of an RFID chip. The le
RFID chips in shoes is to pull back the inner pads and look around or have the shoes X-rayed. The problem w
be embedded in plastic, foam, rubber or other materials at the manufacturing plant. Short of destroying the sh
would be hard to find deeply embedded chips. We are still researching the use of RFID chips in shoes to dete
chipping. (See the Q & A on shoes below for more information.) If the item is made of cardboard, first scan i
clear, flat plastic housing the size of a match head stuck anywhere onto the cardboard? If so, is it hooked up t
matte grey spray-on ink? If so, you are most likely looking at an RFID tag. Pull the cardboard layers apart an
embedded inside. It is rumored that International Paper, an Auto-ID Center sponsor that makes packages for c
things, may be devising ways to embed RFID tags directly into paper and cardboard packaging. If you have a
(say, if you're a veterinarian or a chiropractor) you can X-ray the item to see if it contains an RFID tag. Since
based, you should be able to spot an RFID tag in this way.* Again, you are looking for an antenna converging
you find something unusual and would like us to take a look, drop us an email. *Note that some highly advan
academic research chips do not have a "tell-tale antenna" since they combine the antenna within the chip itse
small they would be nearly impossible to find.

Q: What do I do if I find an RFID chip? Can I kill or disable it?

A: You can disable a chip for all practical purposes by disconnecting it from its antenna. It is usually pretty ob
located in an RFID tag (all the antennas will run to it). Once you find the tiny black square you can use a pair
off. To ensure that the tiny chip cannot later be read (assuming anyone could even find a device so small), yo
straight pin, crush it, or pulverize it. (Note: While burning or microwaving can destroy a chip, we do not reco
of fire risk. See the Q & A below.) Do not try to "drown" it, since water does not generally destroy RFID chip
chip will not work, either.

Q: Can I microwave products to kill any hidden RFID tags they might contain?
A: While microwaving an RFID tag will destroy it (a microwave emits high frequency electromagnetic energ
eventually blowing out the chip), there is a good chance the the tag will burst into flames first. The difficulty
chip is one reason we need legislation making it illegal to hide a chip in an item in the first place.

Q: Are there some products that can't be RFID chipped?

A: Items containing LIQUID or METAL are especially hard to chip. Liquids tend to absorb the electromagne
chip, while metal tends to reflect it and bounce it around in unpredictable ways. Both problems can cause inte
sent by a chip to the reader. These bugs are still being worked on. You can use this information about metal to
store recently remodeled, replacing traditional metal shelving with new-fangled plastic shelves, to prevent int
transmission?

Q: Will a magnet erase an RFID chip?

A: No, the chips are not magnetically encoded. Running a magnet over the chip or using a tape eraser will no

Q: Can chips in clothing survive the washer and dryer?

A: Yes. Many RFID tags are designed to withstand years of normal wear and tear, including washing and dry
least one uniform rental company that uses RFID chips to keep track of its inventory. The chips hold up unde
commercial washings.

Q: Is it true there are plans to put RFID chips in Euro banknotes?

A: Hitachi has been working with the European Central Bank on the idea of putting RFID chips into Euro ba
the anonymity of cash by making it trackable. In essence, it would "register" your cash to you when you get i
of the ATM. Euro banknotes could be RFID tagged as early as 2005. See: "Euro Notes May be Radio Tagged
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t295-s2135074,00.html for details.

Q: Does U.S. currency contain RFID chips?

A: To the best of our knowledge, US currency does NOT currently contain RFID chips.

Q: What's the read range of these chips? Can they be tracked by satellite?
A: There are two types of tags: "passive" (no independent power source) and "active" (containing a battery or
on a number of factors (antenna size, RF frequency, environmental conditions etc.) a passive tag can have a r
to 40 feet. Active tags can have a read range of miles or more. Most tags being considered for use in consume

Q: Is CASPIAN aware of any RFID tags in shoes?

A: We are aware of at least one company that uses embedded RFID technology in shoes for security purposes
company, the RFID labels they use do not contain unique product information. Rather, the RFID labels repor
alarm if a consumer leaves the store without paying for the shoes. (Note that at a June 2003 RFID conference
displayed a Wal-Mart Athletic Works® running shoe with an Alien RFID tag inserted under the insole. Alien
display purposes only and that there were no planned/current trials or applications in those shoes. However, t
the conference over the possibilities for RFID chips in shoes. Their stated reason for wanting to chip shoes w
and match pairs. In our opinion, pervasive RFID chipping of shoes will become a frightening reality unless w
not buy products with chips!)

http://www.spychips.com/what-is-rfid.html
WHAT IS RFID?

RFID stands for Radio Frequency IDentification, a technology that uses tiny computer
chips smaller than a grain of sand to track items at a distance. RFID "spy chips" have
been hidden in the packaging of Gillette razor products and in other products you might
buy at a local Wal-Mart, Target, or Tesco - and they are already being used to spy on
people.

Each tiny chip is hooked up to an antenna that picks up electromagnetic energy beamed at
it from a reader device. When it picks up the energy, the chip sends back its unique
identification number to the reader device, allowing the item to be remotely identified.
Spy chips can beam back information anywhere from a couple of inches to up to 20 or 30
feet away.

Shown at left is a magnified image of actual tag

found in Gillette Mach3 razor blades.

Note: The chip appears as the tiny black square

component. The coil of wires surrounding the chip is
the antenna, which transmits your information to a
reader device, which can be located anywhere!
Photo: © Liz McIntyre 2003

Some of the world's largest product manufacturers have been plotting behind closed
doors since 1999 to develop and commercialize this technology. If they are not opposed,
their plan is to use these remote-readable spy chips to replace the bar code.

RFID tags are NOT an "improved bar code" as the proponents of the technology would
like you to believe. RFID technology differs from bar codes in three important ways:

1. With today's bar code technology, every can of Coke has the same UPC or bar code
number as every other can (a can of Coke in Toronto has the same number as a can of
Coke in Topeka). With RFID, each individual can of Coke would have a unique ID
number which could be linked to the person buying it when they scan a credit card or a
frequent shopper card (i.e., an "item registration system").

2. Unlike a bar code, these chips can be read from a distance, right through your clothes,
wallet, backpack or purse -- without your knowledge or consent -- by anybody with the
right reader device. In a way, it gives strangers x-ray vision powers to spy on you, to
identify both you and the things you're wearing and carrying.

3. Unlike the bar code, RFID could be bad for your health. RFID supporters envision a
world where RFID reader devices are everywhere - in stores, in floors, in doorways, on
airplanes -- even in the refrigerators and medicine cabinets of our own homes. In such a
world, we and our children would be continually bombarded with electromagnetic
energy. Researchers do not know the long-term health effects of chronic exposure to the
energy emitted by these reader devices.

Many huge corporations, including Philip Morris, Procter and Gamble, and Wal-Mart,
have begun experimenting with RFID spy chip technology. Gillette is leading the pack,
and recently placed an order for up to 500 million RFID tags from a company called
"Alien Technology" (we kid you not). These big companies envision a day when every
single product on the face of the planet is tracked with RFID spy chips!

As consumers we have no way of knowing which packages contain these chips. While
some chips are visible inside a package (see our pictures of Gillette spy chips), RFID
chips can be well hidden. For example they can be sewn into the seams of clothes,
sandwiched between layers of cardboard, molded into plastic or rubber, and integrated
into consumer package design.

This technology is rapidly evolving and becoming more sophisticated. Now RFID spy
chips can even be printed, meaning the dot on a printed letter "i" could be used to track
you. In addition, the tell-tale copper antennas commonly seen attached to RFID chips can
now be printed with conductive ink, making them nearly imperceptible. Companies are
even experimenting with making the product packages themselves serve as antennas.

As you can see, it could soon be virtually impossible for a consumer to know whether a
product or package contains an RFID spy chip. For this reason, CASPIAN (the creator of
this web site) is proposing federal labeling legislation, the RFID Right to Know Act,
which would require complete disclosures on any consumer products containing RFID
devices.

We believe the public has an absolute right to know when they are interacting with
technology that could affect their health and privacy.

Don't you?

Join us. Let's fight this battle before big corporations track our every move.

Fight Back!
 For additional information, see "RFID: Tracking Everything Everywhere", an excerpt
from an article by CASPIAN founder Katherine Albrecht, Ed.M. that appeared in the
Summer 2002 issue of the Denver University Law Review.

http://www.spychips.com/devices/verichip-fda-report.html

CASPIAN Special Report, October 19, 2004

FDA Letter Raises Questions about VeriChip Safety, Data Security

FDA letter to the Digital Angel Corporation spells out potential health risks associated with the VeriChip ID implant device. Click here to
download a PDF of the full letter. (For the passage above, see page 3, paragraph 2.)

Think it's completely safe to inject an RFID transponder into your flesh? Think 
again.

Although the FDA approved the VeriChip implant last week, their approval does 
not mean the device is completely safe, according to an FDA letter CASPIAN has 
obtained.   The   letter,   dated   October   12,   2004,   was   sent   to   Digital   Angel 
Corporation and outlines a number of potential health risks associated with the 
device.

Among the potential problems the FDA identifies are: "adverse tissue reaction,"
"migration of the implanted transponder," "failure of implanted transponder," "electrical
hazards" and "magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] incompatibilty." Not to mention the
nasty needle stick from the "inserter" used to inject it. (The FDA lists "failure of inserter"
-- a bloody possiblity we'd rather not contemplate -- among the risks.)

To read the FDA's letter for yourself,  download the PDF  and refer to Page 3, 

Paragraph   2.  

Of the numerous risks listed, MRI incompatibility is perhaps the most serious. An 
MRI machine uses powerful magnetic fields coupled with pulsed radio frequency
(RF) fields.  According to the FDA's Primer on Medical Device Interactions with
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems, "electrical currents may be induced in
conductive metal implants" that can cause "potentially severe patient burns."  

Presumably, VeriChip­MRI incompatibility means that doctors will be unable to 
order this potentially life­saving diagnostic procedure for patients with VeriChip 
implants,   unless   the   patient   undergoes   a   surgical   procedure   to   remove   the 
VeriChip first. 
In addition to health 
risks, the FDA's letter 
identifies "compromised 
data security" as one of 
the concerns associated 
with the VeriChip. It 
appears that not only 
could someone use a 
reader device to capture 
the information from an 
implanted VeriChip, but 
they could use that 
information to create a 
cloned chip with the 
same functionality. (Of 
course, criminals lacking 
RF engineering skills 
might be tempted to take 
a more direct route and 
simply gouge the device out of their victims' arms instead.)

If that's not enough to convince you to "say no" to the VeriChip, how about 
knowing your VeriChip implant can be read whenever you pass through a 
doorway equipped with a special  VeriChip "portal scanner"? 

The image at right comes from a company called "Find Me, LLC," a value­added 
reseller of VeriChip technology based in Louisiana. The company also sells a 
handheld reader, which presumably anyone can use to read VeriChip data.

That's quite a lot of potential harm for something supposedly designed to help  
patients. 

If you're looking for a secure, non­invasive way to alert medical professionals to 
your health history, we recommend the MedicAlert bracelet as a safe alternative 
to the VeriChip. Given the MedicAlert's 48­year track record, all emergency 
health providers know to look for it. It costs far less and has none of the serious 
health risks associated with an implanted computer chip. 

Katherine Albrecht - CASPIAN Founder

http://www.spychips.com/katherine-albrecht.html#

Katherine Albrecht, Ed.D.

(Pronounced ALL-breckt)

Founder and Director, CASPIAN Consumer Advocacy

(Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and
Numbering)
Doctorate in Education, Harvard University

telephone 877-287-5854
e-mail kma(at/@)spychips.com

(click here for a French-translated version)

Dr. Katherine Albrecht is the director of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket

Privacy Invasion and Numbering), an organization she founded in 1999 to advocate free-
market, consumer-based solutions to the problem of retail privacy invasion.

Katherine is widely recognized as one of the world's leading experts on consumer

privacy. She regularly speaks on the consumer privacy and civil liberties impacts of new
technologies, with an emphasis on RFID and retail issues. She has testified on RFID
technology before the Federal Trade Commission, state legislatures, the European
Commission, and the Federal Reserve Bank, and she has given over a thousand
television, radio and print interviews to news outlets all over the world. Her efforts have
been featured on CNN, NPR, the CBS Evening News, Business Week, and the London
Times, to name just a few.

Executive Technology Magazine has called Katherine "perhaps the country's single most
vocal privacy advocate" and Wired magazine calls her the "Erin Brockovich" of RFID".
Her success exposing corporate misdeeds has earned her accolades from Advertising Age
and Business Week and caused pundits to label her a PR genius.

Katherine is co-author of "Spychips: How Major Corporations Plan to Track your Every
Move with RFID." Two days prior to its release, Spychips flew the top of the Amazon
bestseller charts, hitting number one as a "Mover & Shaker," making its way to the top-
ten nonfiction bestseller list, and spending weeks as a Current Events bestseller. Within
its first four weeks alone, the book sold thousands of copies, and the journalistic and
privacy communities called it "brilliantly written," "stunningly powerful," and "scathing."
In a nod to the book's focus on freedom, Spychips was awarded the prestigious Lysander
Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty and named "the best book on
liberty" for 2005.

Katherine is a highly sought-after public speaker, informing audiences across Europe and
North America with her well-researched, compelling, and often chilling accounts of how
retail surveillance technology threatens our privacy. She is a frequent guest on radio
programs worldwide, logging over 500 hours of airtime with her proven ability to
entertain an audience and generate listener calls.

Katherine graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business
Administration with a concentration in International Marketing. She holds a Doctorate in
Education from Harvard University with a research focus in consumer education, privacy
and psychology.