Liberty's Blog: RFID

Sunday, February 12, 2006

RFID

A security company is requiring that employees have an RFID tag inserted in their body.

Two employees have been injected with RFID chips this week as part of a new requirement to access their company's datacenter.

Cincinnati based surveillance company CityWatcher.com created the policy with the hopes of increasing security in the datacenter where video surveillance tapes are stored. In the past, employees accessed the room with an RFID tag which hung from their keychains, however under the new regulations an implantable, glass encapsulated RFID tag from VeriChip must be injected into the bicep to gain access, a release from spychips.com said on Thursday.

Although the company does not require the microchips be implanted to maintain employment, anyone without one will not be able to access the datacenter, according to a Register article.

I'm not sure that I would want anyone sticking these things into me, but from a security standpoint it it doesn't make a lot of sense. RFID devices are just a numeric tag. If the ID number can be read they can be cloned, and sure enough instructions for cloning may be found here. Apparently, Citywatch wasn't aware of this issue, I would have a hard time trusting this company with any real security. It doesn't look to me to that they think things out very well.