Radio-frequency identification devices are small items attached unto something for identification purposes using radio waves. These tags are usually attached to objects, like store merchandise or live animals for inventory and tracking, making it a useful too in supply chain management.
There are mainly two kinds of RFIDs, namely, battery-powered active devices, or those that actively emit radio waves, or passive RFID devices, or those that require an external device to provoke the emission of the radio waves.
Nowadays, we see these devices getting more used in public. For example, most passports now are electronic in nature, i.e. they are powered with RFIDs. In some countries like the Philippines, RFIDs are also attached to public buses for contactless warnings due to violation of traffic rules.
But quite naturally, some quarters are expressing their fear that hackers may already be able to hack into these devices and get personal information during transactions such as credit-card payments or the use of RFID-powered passports. Some privacy experts said that the new devices' long read ranges, it may be possible for hackers to make wireless attacks.
Others are quick to say that these fears are only a product of paranoia. In an age of camera phones and surveillance cameras, some of these people believe that RFIDs present a very insignificant issue not worth looking into by the legislature.
Meanwhile, from where I am, some quarters claim that the national government might just use the information against its own citizens. Unfortunately, they are not aware that RFIDs do not work like GPS readers. The read range may be large, but it is not large enough to get detected remotely from a satellite receiver. But of course these protesters won't budge.
Some people just cannot get enough of the conspiracy films the see on TV. In the meantime, actual security issues that have to be addressed are left underneath the piles of should-do legislative work. How inefficient.
