August 07, 2006
Filtering Objections To RFID Technology
Can a parallel be drawn between the religious oppositions of the past, such as objections to smallpox vaccine testing, and the religious "mark-of-the-beast" opposition to RFID that privacy advocate Katherine Albrecht has? Mark Roberti of RFID Journal reflects upon both cases [via RFID Journal]
Personally, as I've stated/ implied several times, I have no religious objections to RFID technology itself. I think it's a brilliant technology, with endless applications. But I do have simple "citizen of the world" objections to some of RFID's intended uses, many of which are backed with flimsy excuses for their necessity - when in fact it's purely a play for the immense profit that can be made by politically ensuring mass enforcement of a technology. [How's that saying go? If you want to make a million dollars, sell a million-dollar item to one person or a $1 item to a million people. Or even a $0.10 item to 10 million people.]
That said, I don't believe RFID should be banned, but I do believe that caution should be exercised on the uses that particularly offend people. There are legitimate objections, and they have to be filtered from those are likely the result of misperceptions.
The less government regulation the better, but what do you do when the government it self uses the technology that offends some people? As always, it's not the technology that's evil, but how it's used. What do you think? Do you object to RFID in general, or to some of its uses, or not at all?
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