Yes, it shows your Health Link chip linked to Google, Microsoft, employers and insurers. The company also sees the VeriMed Health Link linked to your “identity security services,” through a separate VeriChip product, PositiveID. This slide show states:
PositiveID puts people in control of their personal health records and financial information, bridging the gap between secure medical records and identity security
PositiveID dovetails with Health Link:
Cross marketing opportunities: cross-sell the NationalCreditReport.com customer base the Health Link personal health record and vice-versa
Differentiates PositiveID as the only personal health record that offers identity theft protection
It’s a future in which your doctor tags you like a dog with a microchip that allows anyone with the right privileges to look at your medical records, credit history, social security number (see slide 6), and anything else that stems from that.
Suddenly, storing medical records on paper in locked cabinets inside a single doctor’s office starts to look like something we may not want to rush to give up. ...source
Lockheed Martin and IBM will join together to develop and maintain the Next Generation Identification system for the FBI. NGI is the new multi-modal, state-of–the-art biometrics system that will be used by state, local and federal authorities.
The NGI system will now also include palm prints, iris and facial recognition capabilities in addition to fingerprints. Lockheed Martin will provide program oversight as well as biometric and large systems development. As a subcontractor, IBM will provide information technology services, as well as specific software and hardware to be used in the NGI system.
IBM had previously protested the contract award to Lockheed. It wasn't immediately know if the computing giant dropped its protest bid with this announcement....source
Check out this eyeopening video: "IBM and the Holocaust"
After somebody enters a store, a sniffer "scans all identifiable RFID tags carried on the person" and correlates the tag information with sales records to determine the individual's "exact identity." A device known as a "person tracking unit" then assigns a tracking number to the shopper "to monitor the movement of the person through the store or other areas."
Another patent, obtained in 2003 by NCR Corp., details how camouflaged sensors and cameras would record customers' wanderings through a store, film their facial expressions at displays, and time — to the second — how long shoppers hold and study items.
Why? Such monitoring "allows one to draw valuable inferences about the behavior of large numbers of shoppers," the patent states.
Then there's a 2001 patent application from Procter & Gamble Co.: "Systems and methods for tracking consumers in a store environment." It lays out an idea to use heat sensors to track and record "where a consumer is looking, i.e., which way she is facing, whether she is bending over or crouching down to look at a lower shelf."
The documents "raise the hair on the back of your neck," said Liz McIntyre, co-author of "Spychips," a book that is critical of the industry. "The industry has long promised it would never use this technology to track people. But these patent records clearly suggest otherwise."...read more
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico is going high tech to better track the movements of Central Americans who regularly cross the southern border to work or visit.
Starting in March, the National Immigration Institute will distribute cards containing electronic chips.
Those items will record every arrival and departure of so-called temporary workers and visitors, mostly from Guatemala.
The cards will replace a non-electronic pass formerly given to area residents.
Officials say the purpose is to guarantee security for workers and visitors.
Statistics from the institute show that more than 182,000 undocumented migrants were detained in Mexico in 2006. Most were Central Americans from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador en route to the U.S.
AT&T's RFID application is designed to work in conjunction with GPS-based mobile resource management services, as well as the carrier's wireless data network and hosted applications. With AT&T's offering, schools can track people or assets by placing Wi-Fi-based RFID tags on ID badges attached to equipment, bracelets, shirt pockets, or book bags. The mobile resource management system would then relay the location of the tagged person or asset over AT&T's wireless data network to a secure Web site portal. The data would be accessible by authorized personnel that have access to a Web browser. Through the use of active RFID, meaning tags that send out a signal to broadcast their location, schools can potentially minimize theft of high-value equipment and assets like computers and lab equipment. It would also make it easier to locate mobile equipment in a large building, such as a school, said AT&T. Supplying students with RFID badges would help with daily attendance in schools and help the staff identify students who are absent by importing information in the student-information databases. The same could be applied to school visitors, especially to prevent them from entering unauthorized areas. AT&T also said its system could aid in emergency situations, helping locate school staff to make sure that nobody is left in the building if evacuation were necessary. One other application is the tracking of school buses to ensure student safety and help school districts route buses more efficiently. In this case, RFID readers and tracking devices would be placed on the buses to get location data. AT&T would design, deploy, and manage the mobile devices and applications, the network, and data centers, in addition to the infrastructure that includes RFID readers, tags, data-collection servers, LANs, wireless LANs, firewalls, and routers. AT&T (NYSE: T) on Wednesday began providing radio-frequency identification and GPS-based products and services that schools can use to track students, assets, visitors, and their staff.
Nicknamed "Powder" or "Dust", these chips consist of 128-bit ROM (Read Only Memory) that can store a 38-digit number. Hitachi says the distance between each circuit element was reduced using the Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) process, where an insulation layer and a monocrystalline silicon layer are formed upon the silicon base substrate, and the transistor is then formed on this SOI substrate. When compared to the conventional process where a transistor is formed directly upon the silicon substrate, this technology significantly reduces parasitic capacitance and current leakage, improving the transistor's performance. The SOI process also prevents the interference between neighboring devices, which often causes product malfunctions. Thanks to an insulator surrounding each device, Hitachi experts say that even when the devices are in close proximity, higher integration is achieved on an even smaller area.
The surface area of the new chips was reduced to a quarter of the original 0.3 x 0.3 mm, 60µm-thick chip developed by Hitachi in 2003. The company says that developments in thin chip fabrication technology enabled the significant decrease in width – to one-eighth of that of the previous model. With more chips that can be fabricated on a single wafer, productivity was increased by over four times, and Hitachi expects this will open the way to new applications for wireless RFID chips.
The µ-Chip uses an external antenna to receive radio waves, which can be transformed and wirelessly transmitted as a unique ID number. The data is written during the fabrication process, using ROM, and is therefore non-rewritable, providing a high level of authenticity. "By taking advantage of the merits of compactness, high authenticity and wireless communication, and combining it with Internet technology, the µ-Chip may be utilized in a broad range of applications such as security, transportation, amusement, traceability and logistics" – said Hitachi engineers who worked on the project.
Hitachi is continuing to develop technologies that increase communication's distance range and decrease antenna size, whilst preserving high reliability and aiming for improved productivity. The company said that the enhanced compactness and thinness of the new chip has further broadened the range of possible applications, including gift certificates that can be authenticated. The new RFID "powder" can also be incorporated into thin paper, such as currency, creating so-called "bugged" money.
Miniature RFID chips may also have advanced military applications such as smartdust. Smartdust is the concept of wireless MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) sensors that can detect anything from light and temperature to vibrations. Using a large amount of sensors is not a new concept - the U.S. military experimented with this idea already during the Vietnam War (Operation Igloo White). While the older sensors were relatively large and only somewhat effective, Professor Christopher Pister from UC Berkeley suggested in 2001 to create a new type of micro sensor that could theoretically be as small as a grain of sand. Research into this idea is ongoing and is being funded by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). What was only a theoretical concept in 2001 has now become a reality with the latest development by Hitachi, and could find its way to intelligence agencies across the world.
RFID chips are also a source for increasing controversy surrounding issues of privacy. An RFID chip can be used to track the location of unsuspecting individuals who have bought products that include RFID tags in their package. Having miniature cheap RFID chips, such as those developed by Hitachi, implanted inside anything we buy might make many people feel very uncomfortable. However, big businesses believe that consumers' fears are dwarfed by the benefits of RFID chips, which include reduced theft, digital real time inventory, and better information on consumer shopping habits.
TFOT looked at several RFID related technologies including HP's Memory Spot Chip, which is some what similar to RFID technology (although there are also some important differences), The RFID Loc8tor that can identify special RFID tags from a distance of up to 183 meters (600 feet), and a new Nanobattery technology developed at the Tel Aviv University, which could power semi-active RFID chips in the future.
Hitachi is constantly developing new and advanced chips. After publishing the information regarding the 0.15 x 0.15 millimeter RFID chip back in 2006, the company apparently completed working on the improved RFID chip in early 2007. According to the Nikkei website, Hitachi is now planning on developing an even smaller RFID chip using 65-nanometer lithographic technology.