Thursday, July 8, 2010

RFID Citizen Card

Digital everything now. 'Analog' may soon become a quick description for something outdated by improving technology. Worth noting in America's 2009 analog to digital conversion (Outdoor TV Antenna) may be the potential losses in privacy and personal information security of citizens. With few alarms heard, digital everything may facilitate the end of personal privacy. And wearing a tin foil hat probably will qualify me for a free burrito at Chipotle Mexican Grill on Halloween.

All-In-One RFID Technology 'Citizen Card'
Source: WSJ
China currently uses a type of citizen card to gather and store data about the population in some of it's cities. Soon RFID technology enabled all-in-one citizen cards may be used by national and city governments in many more Chinese communities. These RFID citizen cards may be like credit cards that have used performance enhancing steroids under a physician's care.

Chinese planners see many potential uses for all-in-one citizen cards: official identification, birth and social security registration, medical history storage, residential information, distribute public benefits, track the population's geographical movements, etc.

The Future of Privacy or 'Just Get Over It'

A Question for Blog Readers
Are privacy and personal information security issues important to you? To some extent, of course they are. How do you make individual judgments regarding specific issues -- when are the costs worth the benefits?

Next post scheduled 7.22.10: "Pre-Seniors"

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