October 26, 2005
Passports to Get RFID Chip Implants
All U.S. passports will be implanted with remotely readable computer chips starting in October 2006, the Bush administration has announced.
The chipped passports "will not permit 'tracking' of individuals," the department said. "It will only permit governmental authorities to know that an individual has arrived at a port of entry--which governmental authorities already know from presentation of non-electronic passports--with greater assurance that the person who presents the passport is the legitimate holder of the passport."
To address Americans' concerns about ID theft, the Bush administration said the new passports will be outfitted with "antiskimming material" in the front cover to "mitigate" the threat of the information being surreptitiously scanned from afar. It's not clear, though, how well the technique will work against high-powered readers that have been demonstrated to read RFID chips from about 160 feet away.
article | Politech
~From passport photos to dots on a screen; blips when we're moving? (From playing pac-man to being pac-man.)
From video surveillance, with humans or machines looking at pictures of other human beings, to humans or machines tracking a few colored pixels.
Can our flesh and form be given any less significance and still be found to exist?
[photo cieciel\ not from above]