Is there really an RFID chip in my passport, or should I just stop watching public access tv?
It’s difficult to give up a reliable source of cheap crazy. On the other hand, the Internet is a much more fertile landscape for that kind of thing.
Apparently, RFID chips were introduced to American passports in 2006.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/123246/united_states_to_require_rfid_chips_in_passports.html
Not only is it real, it’s been subject to a lot of controversy from privacy groups due to the ease of which the information can be eavesdropped by random people with RFID readers.
Can I remove the chip? Will I get in trouble if I do?
Yes. No. But you won’t be able to travel on it, and you’ll probably have to destroy the passport to do it (the tag is behind the photo on mine), so there’s not a lot of point.
You can microwave it to fry it. Not sure what happens after that.
ETA: It appears the suggested method is a good ol’ hammer. Smash for freedom!
Are there chips in money?
Not in US money, at least not publicly known. There was some ballyhoo over the new $20s supposedly being RFIDed, but turns out they were just metal anti-counterfeit strips.
Interestingly, the Bureau of Engraving & Printing has this to say:
What that means, I have no idea. It could just be a certain design that cameras look for or it could be some nefarious new undetectable RF transmitter that’s surely a sign of the End Times. Your choice.
Oh, but some credit cards have them. There are a lot of uses for the little guys. You can even embed them in your body if you’re so inclined.
I’d suggest not damaging the RFID chip. They might force you to replace the passport if the chip is damaged and it will probably cause you some hassles going through immigration if they can’t read it, since they might think the passport is a forgery.
There is supposed to be a shield to prevent the RFID from being read when the passport is closed, but I think some people sell sleeves with additional shielding.
Some people suggest, if you are worried about it, that you just wrap your passport in aluminum foil.
If Walmart has their way, someday everything will have a RFID tag on it. Right now they only get their suppliers to tag at the crate level, but in the long term, they want to get the price of the tags down to a fraction of a penny, so they can put tags on everything. They want to be able to inventory the stock on an aisle by just walking down it with a reader. You will just check out by putting your cart under a reader and it will show you the total for the merchandise in your cart without having to swipe each item.
The funny thing is that US currency has been “machine readable” for quite a few years already. If it wasn’t, you’d be able to feed slips of copier paper into vending machines to buy things.
What they’re probably referring to is the position of the “security thread” that you can see when you hold a bill up to light. Different denominations have the thread at different positions inside the paper. This is a large part of what enables vending machines to distinguish ones from twenties.
But there’s no RFID and no “intelligence” in your money.
As for the RFID chip in my passport - so what? It stores a number. If I was actually concerned about someone tracking where I was, I’d just keep the passport in the foil-lined pouch that came with it. Come to think of it, I don’t know where my passport is.
I’d actually like being able to apply RFID tags to certain things so when I lose them, I could wave a scanner around the house and find them without having to root through drawers.
You gotta admit if they can get that to work, that’d be pretty darn cool
I just found this article on how a hacker was able to get the information from passport cards just driving down the street.
I don’t know if you could do the same thing on actual passports. I assume the card type passports would have no shielding.
It does sound cool, but I’m so sure I want people to be able to cruise by on the street and tell what products I have in my house. There may be a good market for home RFID zappers.