CA bill would ban forced subdermal RFID-tagging of humans

California's senate passed a bill last week that bans the forced RFID tagging of humans (think: prisoners, employees, pedos out on the street who've done their time). The state senator who sponsored the bill described that scenario as the "the ultimate invasion of privacy." The bill is on its way to Governor Schwarzenegger's desk now; if it is signed into law, California would become the third state with such a ban on the books (along with Wisconsin and North Dakota).

Snip from Ars Technica post on this story:

Senate Bill 362 "would prohibit a person from requiring, coercing, or compelling any other individual to undergo the subcutaneous implanting of an identification device," and a similar version has already passed the state Assembly. Joseph Simitian, who came up with the idea, laments the fact that the RFID industry does not appear to find his idea a good one.

"I think it's unfortunate and regrettable that the industry hasn't come out in support of SB 362," he said in a statement after the bill passed the Senate. "I understand why we're having a robust debate about the privacy concerns related to RFID, but at the very least, we should be able to agree that the forced implanting of under-the-skin technology into human beings is just plain wrong. I'm deeply concerned that this isn't a given for the industry."

Link. Wired News has a related item here. (thanks Glyn)

• [Telecommuting Millionaire]

  Wow, class, can we say, shades of “the mark of the beast?” or The Book of Revelations? or SciFi channel come to life . . . Logan’s Run, anyone?

• [Jennifer Emick]

  I think it is certainly likely. The obvious sell would be child molesters, possibly immigrants, prisoners- any “undesirable” where fear can be played on for public acceptance. Combine that with “voluntary” tagging of children, alzheimer’s patients, government employees, etc., and it could become a matter of routine for some classes of people.

• [Perla]

  I know in the UK and in the US, you are against national IDs. I’m in Spain and we have national ids. I’m not tracked or followed by the police; I’ve never been forced to show my ID just randomly walking in the street. Now if you are a black male or Arab looking, it’s more difficult though I know loads of immigrants with no papers and as long as they stay low and not cause trouble, they manage quite well. My ID doesn’t have a chip. I use my ID as proof of ID like in the US you use driver licenses. (What does a person who doesn’t drive in the US do?) There are laws set about what you can or cannot do with an ID. Are driver licences an invasion of privacy? What about your Social Security numbers? The one difference I notice is that here I’ve to show ID when I use a debit or credit card. You can’t just randomly use someone else’s card here in Spain so I find it strange, the Macaulay Culkin movie when he’s left behind and uses his dad’s credit card. And many people don’t use credit cards, they prefer to pay in cash. If I didn’t use debit or credit cards, I wouldn’t have to use my ID practically. I do remember having to show ID when writing a check in West Virginia. A friend brought her passport and the clerk’s head almost exploded as she couldn’t figure out it out.

  Spain had a dictator till 1976. They are very touchy about privacy and have very strict laws. It’s just to say I’m who I’m and look here’s a picture. If you are going to track people, I’m sure it’s quite easy to introduce new driving licenses with a special chip! And make public transport very difficult to use so everyone has to get a car, and gets tracked.
  I’m less watched in Spain than in the UK or the US. You are some of the most watched populations in the world. (Monaco is another one, now that’s Cameraland, in the parking lot, elevators etc. My boyfriend and I put on a couple of shows.) In the UK, there are cameras EVERYWHERE. That’s frikking scary, in the parking lot, everywhere I went there was that menacing black ball. Since there’s no national ID, or laws that come with what you can use with that ID, and laws are vague, the government has less restrictions on what it can do. All governments will keep tabs on their citizens (and they do), if you don’t have national IDs, they will just find other more sinister ways. Look at the UK DNA database. Shudder. I’ll rather have an ID that has strict regulations on what authorities can do with it, thank you.
  I’ve lived in the US, UK and now in Spain.

• [Anonymous]

  Despite the language prohibiting “requiring, coercing, or compelling” implantation of an RFID, I’d guess that the way this would be introduced would be on a “voluntary” basis anyway: Felons would agree to accept an RFID as a condition of parole, or “sexual predators” would agree to it as an alternative to spending the rest of their post-sentence life locked up in an institution.

  Or everyone just has to get one in order to be permitted to buy or sell… ;)

• [John Platt]

  “would prohibit a person from requiring, coercing, or compelling any other individual to undergo the subcutaneous implanting of an identification device,”

  I was worried that “a person” meant the law would not apply to corporations or government agencies, but the bill itself takes care of that:

  “Person” means an individual, business association, partnership, limited partnership, corporation, limited liability company, trust, estate, cooperative association, or other entity.

• [Anonymous]

  This isn’t a relatively significant bill as far as protecting our right to privacy. It is more the result of a general fear of what the future could be like where states are preemptively banning below skin tracking devices from being forced on the public, but the intent behind such a surgery seems a real likelihood in our future.

  The purpose of an RFID below the skin is entirely unnecessary when compared to the capability of tracking the public.

  Previously on BoingBoing there have been articles about RFIDs in the USA Passport and possibly in the national ID cards (the REAL ID).

  Why would you need subdermal RFIDs when you require a national ID and those ID cards have RFIDs within them?

  Considering you never let your passport out of your hands when you are traveling outside the country, the ability to track all of the public is a reality, and if one day we do have a required national ID card the same will be true for our day-to-day traveling.

• [Cliff G.]

  Good points all.

  With all due respect to Kevin and while absolutely NOT trying to insert any kind of pun here, I’d be more worried about some kind of backdoor entry into society.

  Some corporation (why does Coke spring to mind?) might try to convince young people that such implantation is the “new-cool-thing-to-do” – that doing so would include fantastic benefits like discounts on products or the accumulation of points which could be redeemed for products. They would then make a competition to see how many scanning points around a city they could ‘hit’. A great way to study the mobility habits of the generation with the greatest discretionary income.

  Besides, didn’t Schwarzenegger’s character in “Total Recall” have something like that (albeit much larger) implanted in his brain which he quite painfully extracted thru his nose?

  Wreck’d him? Damn near killed him.

• [gia]

  As long as Arnold is the governor, the aliens will be considered persons for this bill …

• [evilrooster]

  I note that there is no mention of the age of the target individual.

  The interesting case law will come when a minor challenges his/her parents’ right to consent to subcutaneous RFID implantation on his/her behalf (particularly if they are the ones wanting the implantation).

• [Kevin]

  How about you get the people at Apple to do the marketing for it. I’m sure they’ll turn it into an instant hit. Just give away an I phone with every implant.

  I myself am waiting until they offer it as an anal implant.

• [dculberson]

  I’m curious: has anyone run into a scenario where the forced subdermal RFID-tagging of humans was likely? This feels like a real-world version of the Robot Insurance commercial. (To rephrase, “An answer looking for a question.”) (To get more trite: “Cart before the horse.”) ;-)

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden/Moderator]

  Cliff (10), forget the free merchandise. What you do is make it the basis of a really hot social site.

• [Anonymous]

  To Perla:

  The lack of consistent, strong privacy laws in the US is just one of the major reasons why a national ID is a bad idea.

  And Social Security numbers–when used as IDs–are a major problem in terms of identity theft. They were never designed to be anything other than an account number for receiving SS benefits, and so lack a lot of security and privacy features that you’d actually want in a robust identifier, to say nothing of an authenticator.

• [nick]

  It’s never too early to be thinking about the possible negative effects of new technology, as well as the benefits. For once, this country should try to be AHEAD of the curve on an issue, rather than belatedly reacting to situations when they start going bad. That’s why legislation like this is a good idea.

  I am also very wary of the idea of “voluntary” tagging. An example: as a pacifist, I could have gotten away with not signing up for Selective Service, if I had been willing to give up financial aid and not gone to college, in which case I would probably be working at WalMart today.

  Sure, I had a choice, but can that really be seen as an exercise of my free will, or was it really coercion? I mean, we all have to eat and we all need access to health care, etc. The words “choice” and “voluntary,” in a capitalist society like ours, often just disguise less obvious forms of (economic)coercion.

  Of COURSE involuntary tagging is wrong and should be made illegal. That’s obvious. But let’s not forget about the less obvious, more insidious abuses that are taking place every day in this country, like workplace and pre-employment drug testing.