By Jan Billenga for The
Register.
This article has been reproduced with permission.
The VeriChip is a glass encapsulated RFID tag that is injected
into the triceps area of the arm to uniquely identify individuals.
The tag can be read by radio waves from a few inches away.
The news was reported by CASPIAN (Consumers Against
Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering), a US organisation that
opposes the use of surveillance RFID cards.
Although CityWatcher does not require its employees to take an
implant to keep their jobs, they won't get in the data centre
without it. CASPIAN’s Katherine Albrecht says chipping sets an
unsettling precedent. "It's wrong to link a person's paycheck with
getting an implant,” she says.
CityWatcher argues that chipping employees is a move to increase
the layer of security, as present systems can be compromised.
However, CASPIAN warns that this can happen to implantable chips
too. Security researcher Jonathan Westhues author of a
chapter in a book titled Hacking the Prox Card
recently demonstrated how the VeriChip can be skimmed and cloned by
a hacker. A cloned chip theoretically could duplicate an
individual's VeriChip implant to access a secure area
© The Register
2006
