Thursday, October 12, 2006

Do you want to be tagged?

There is a report on the BBC which talks about tagging airport passengers in the name of security.

Quite why this would make a difference is beyond me.

That said, my concern is not about its application within airports but the potential for this becoming accepted and then the norm.

The report states -

He said: "The basic idea is that airports could be fitted with a network of combined panoramic cameras and RFID (radio frequency ID) tag readers, which would monitor the movements of people around the various terminal buildings."

He said: "In our system, the location can be detected to an accuracy of 1m, and video and tag data could be merged to give a powerful surveillance capability."

The project still needs to overcome some hurdles, such as finding a way of ensuring the tags cannot be switched between passengers or removed without notification.

If such a scheme was introduced, and its always been a matter of when, not if, just how long would it take before such a step was deemed necessary in workplaces and in public?

Certainly, the Biometric Passport was devised before the concept of ID cards was brought back to life.

Combined with the huge CCTV surveillance resources employed by the British state, tracking by other means, a biometric database linked to RFID chips could be the final nail in the coffin of our freedom and privacy.

I feel more secure without this type of security, how about you?

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