New Identification Technology Raises Concerns over Privacy

TOM BEARDEN, NewsHour Correspondent:

A new, far-reaching — and to some disturbing — technology is hidden inside the metal boxes astride this clattering conveyor belt in an Arkansas warehouse. It's called RFID, for radio frequency identification.

Each one of these cartons has a low-cost electronic tag pasted on the outside. When the tags pass through a radio field created by the antennas, they're energized, sending back a unique number that can be read and stored in a computer. RFID can help sort merchandise, keep track of inventory, dispatch shipments to outlying stores.

Some of America's biggest retailers are starting to take advantage of that potential, but RFID can be used to identify more uniquely personal items, too, like prescription drug bottles, even individual human beings themselves.

Sayan Chakraborty is chief technology officer for SkyeTek, a Colorado firm that makes RFID tags and readers so tiny that they can be put in places never before possible.

SAYAN CHAKRABORTY, Chief Technology Officer, SkyeTek:

This is an RFID tag. So this has a little microchip, has a little antenna. You can stick it on clothes. This would be a clothing style tag right here.

TOM BEARDEN:

And an ID bracelet?

SAYAN CHAKRABORTY:

Yes, it's used for patient safety application, so when you show up at the hospital, it will be embedded with some data about you, your patient ID number, perhaps your blood type.

TOM BEARDEN:

Another reader there?

SAYAN CHAKRABORTY:

This is a scanner for events, and it goes along with this ticket printer, developed by one of our customers. And this actually outputs event tickets with RFID tags embedded in them. So the main goal here is to prevent cloning so that I can't show up with my RFID-enabled ticket from the Super Bowl, only I bought from a scalper down the street.