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A Privacy And Security Pandora’s Box?

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

ScienceDaily | A research article published in the current issue of the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management suggests that Big Brother could be opening a privacy and security Pandora’s Box if human rights, particularly regarding data protection are not addressed in the design of new RFID applications.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips can be found tagging everything from groceries and clothing to the experimental swipe-free credit cards used to pay for those goods. In library cards, warehouse inventories, and under-skin pet tags. They are also used for prisoner and parole tags, in hospital patient wristbands, and in smart passports.

According to Eleni Kosta and Jos Dumortier of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, the benefits of RFID technology in innovation are beyond question. However, the threats posed to personal privacy should be taken into account at the design phase of the applications. Their increasingly widespread deployment means individuals do not necessarily know when, how and what kind of information about them is being transmitted at any given time from an RFID in a passport, in their shopping bags, or even when they visit the library.

RFID tags are powerful devices for use in a wide array of applications: stock inventory, logistics, security finance, buildings, and across international borders. However, they provide a seemingly innocuous medium for the collection and transmission of personal data, as well as the ability to track the movements of people.

The European Union has already recognised some of the concerns being raised. A recent European Commission report, “Communication on RFID” emphasised that privacy and security should be built into RFID information systems before their widespread deployment. Moreover,
European legislation on data protection applies to RFID technology when it entails the processing of personal data, Kosta and Dumortier point out. However, it is not always clear whether or not information stored on or transmitted via an RFID tag is personal data.

“In order to achieve a common approach towards RFID technology at the
European level, a unified interpretation of what is perceived as personal data is necessary,” the team explains. “When information about an individual, such as name, age and nationality, is directly stored in an RFID tag, it is beyond doubt that it qualifies as personal data.”

However, there are many instances when the information seemingly cannot be directly linked to an individual, but by linking the RFID tag number to a back-end database can be correlated with a credit card payment, for instance, and so provide indirect identification of the individual. “In this case, even if the data seem anonymous at first sight, the processing falls under the scope of application of the Data Protection
Directive, as the data can be easily linked to the credit card data”, the team explains. Even vaguer are the cases when the information on the RFID tag cannot be linked to an actual person, or at least significant effort is needed for a link to be made.

The team counter the argument that honest citizens have nothing to fear from RFID. “A surveillance society where RFID tags reveal personal information and enable the tracking and tracing of the individuals, shall be contested, as every law-abiding citizen should be free from any kind of monitoring,” they say.

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U.S. School District to Begin Microchipping Students

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

By David Gutierrez | A Rhode Island school district has announced a pilot program to monitor student movements by means of radio frequency identification (RFID) chips implanted in their schoolbags.

The Middletown School District, in partnership with MAP Information Technology Corp., has launched a pilot program to implant RFID chips into the schoolbags of 80 children at the Aquidneck School. Each chip would be programmed with a student identification number, and would be read by an external device installed in one of two school buses. The buses would also be fitted with global positioning system (GPS) devices.

Parents or school officials could log onto a school web site to see whether and when specific children had entered or exited which bus, and to look up the bus’s current location as provided by the GPS device.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has criticized the plan as an invasion of children’s privacy and a potential risk to their safety.

“There’s absolutely no need to be tagging children,” said Stephen Brown, executive director of the ACLU’s Rhode Island chapter. According to Brown, the school district should already know where its students are.

“[This program is] a solution in search of a problem,” Brown said.

The school district says that its current plan is no different than other programs already in place for parents to monitor their children’s school experience. For example, parents can already check on their children’s attendance records and what they have for lunch, said district Superintendent Rosemary Kraeger.

Brown disputed this argument. The school is perfectly entitled to track its buses, he said, but “it’s a quantitative leap to monitor children themselves.” He raised the question of whether unauthorized individuals could use easily available RFID readers to find out students’ private information and monitor their movements.

Because the pilot program is being provided to the school district at no cost, it did not require approval from the Rhode Island ethics commission.

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Enhanced Tracking Technology May Help RFID

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

By DON CLARK

A Los Angeles start-up says it has developed a way to dramatically expand the range of a popular wireless tracking technology, opening up many new applications for low-cost identification tags.

Closely held Mojix Inc. says its enhancements to a technology known as RFID — for radio frequency identification — sharply reduce the cost of setting up wireless networks that can cover entire warehouses, stores, distribution centers and yards where heavy equipment is stored.

Such networks can be used to quickly locate goods and track their movements without having to be close to a scanning device. Networks with similar capabilities today typically require sophisticated RFID tags that cost anywhere from around $4 to more than $1,000 each, said John Fontanella, an analyst at AMR Research. Mojix says its hardware uses simpler tags that cost as little as 10 cents each.

“I think this could have significant impact,” said Michael Liard, an analyst at ABI research, of Mojix’s technology.

RFID, a more-sophisticated successor to bar codes, is used for applications such as preventing shoplifting of garments in stores and handling payments at bridge toll gates. Applying identification tags to pallets and boxes of goods has been touted as a better way to track inventories at retailers, manufacturers and other companies. But adoption has been slower than some companies expected, because of conversion costs and other issues.

The least-expensive form of the technology uses what the industry calls “passive” RFID tags, which have no power source or means to transmit data on their own. They are activated by radio signals from a device called a reader, which allows the tags to answer by sending information such as product identification numbers.

Readers for passive tags typically have a maximum transmission range of about 30 feet, said Ramin Sadr, Mojix’s chief executive. Partly as a result, companies often only deploy RFID networks in limited locations, such has around loading docks so they can track goods entering and leaving warehouses.

But in the late 1980s, Mr. Sadr and other Mojix engineers worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on technology used in long-range communications to spacecraft. They attempted to apply some of those concepts to RFID. The system they developed uses a grid of low-cost transmitters to provide radio energy to nearby RFID tags, which respond by sending signals to an unusually sensitive central receiver, Mr. Sadr said.

Each of the company’s receivers can manage signals from 512 transmitters — each as far as 600 feet away, Mr. Sadr said. The resulting coverage area can be up to 250,000 square feet, or about 100 times the coverage area of previous systems based on conventional tag readers, he added. Mojix isn’t disclosing exact pricing, but estimates that a network based on its technology will cost 20% to 25% less than other typical RFID systems as well as offer more-sophisticated capabilities.

Mojix isn’t likely to lack for competition. Ronny Haraldsvik, vice president of marketing and industry relations at Alien Technology Corp., a maker of RFID tags and readers in Morgan Hill, Calif., said Mojix appears to be targeting long-range applications now served by companies that use active RFID tags. “They are very entrenched,” he said.

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Researchers develop RFID ‘smart tags’ for workplace

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Researchers at Lancaster University are developing a new generation of ‘smart tags’ to “help keep workers safe on construction sites.”

NEMO technology in development

The research project is creating tiny Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags, with sensors and memory, which can be embedded in everyday objects - such as tools - and communicate via a network using wireless technology.

These can be used for example to help monitor people using heavy machinery – ensuring they are working safely within the recommended guidelines.

A drill with a smart tag

Smart tags could transform Health and Safety in the modern workplace. For example, the information can be used by employers and workers to monitor their exposure to vibrations from power tools such as drills which can lead to a painful condition called ‘vibration white finger’.

In an interview with the BBC online, Dr Gerd Kortuem of Lancaster University’s Computing Department, said RFID tags were getting smarter and more communicative as bigger memory, basic processing power and wireless technologies are added to them.

Dr Gerd Kortuem

“We are trying to embed a little more intelligence beyond location by adding sensors and by networking these objects together,” he said.

The project – known as NEMO (or Networked Embedded Models and Memories of Physical Work Activity) is an EPSRC-Funded Collaborative Research Project.

The project runs for four years, and involves close collaboration with world-leading companies including Agilent, BP, Carillion and In Touch.

It involves Dr Gerd Kortuem, Professor Nigel Davies, Professor Hans Gellersen, Professor David Hutchison and Dr Joe Finney, all of the Computing Department, Dr Jerry Busby, Management School and Dr Linden Ball, Psychology.

For further information on their research go to http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/nemo/

To read the BBC article on line go to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7207514.stm

http://domino.lancs.ac.uk/

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Privacy watchdog calls for RFID regulations

Saturday, January 5th, 2008

 Ian GrantConsumers who buy RFID-enabled goods should have an automatic veto against their personal details being collected and associated with the device, says the European Data Protection Supervisor.

Responding to the European Commission’s communication on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Europe, Peter Hustinx said self-regulation might be enough to start with, but that new privacy legislation may be needed.

He called for the commission to give clear guidance on how to apply the current legal framework to the RFID environment. He said there should be European Community legislation to regulate RFID usage in case the existing legal framework failed.

Such measures should lay down the opt-in principle at the point of sale as a precise and undeniable legal obligation, he said. He called for the identification of best available techniques to enable manufacturers to build in privacy in their system designs.

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Insecure RFID Passports Get Stamp of Approval

Friday, January 4th, 2008

U.S. State Department Approves RFID Passports Amidst Privacy Concerns

With the original incarnation slammed over security concerns, a new breed of RFID-enabled passports received the U.S. State Department’s stamp of approval last Monday. The new passports are set to launch this spring for U.S. citizens entering the United States through land and sea checkpoints.

Readable at up to 20 feet, the next-generation design is supposed to help increase passports’ security and reduce the omnipresent lines found at entry points around the country.

Compared to the previous generation of RFID passport – dubbed “e-Passports” – the new generation of RFID passports contain security features that are far more protected, with many of its developments based on the 4,000+ responses received by the State Department on a public request for comment in December 2006. New security features include:

• A “randomized unique identification” system that produces a different ID each time the chip is accessed
• A digital signature that can help identify when the passport’s data has been altered
• A metallic insert in the passport’s spine and front cover that blocks radio signals when the cover is closed.

While many critics continue to express privacy concerns, the new security features are sufficient to pacify at least some of the passport’s vocal critics. “At the moment, the security protections in U.S. passports are pretty good,” said Ari Juels, Chief Scientist and Director of Massachusetts-based RSA Laboratories, in a December 14 statement to the Los Angeles Times.

The new passport design will use “vicinity read” RFID technology, as opposed to the previous generation “proximity read” technology, which need to be swiped at a scanner and were only readable from a few inches.

However, while the new passports are a definite improvement, critics stress that they are far from perfect. Critics have particularly attacked the new passports’ increased range, which many claim will help facilitate identity theft. In one example, mobile security company Flexilis found the passport’s metallic shielding inadequate, allowing for the passport’s transmitter to be read even when it is closed.

To demonstrate this, Flexilis posted a YouTube video demonstrating a proof of concept where a trashcan armed with an explosive charge detonates as a dummy equipped with the “shielded” passport passes by. The threat, it says, is that terrorists could use the passports’ increased range to selectively identify Americans in foreign lands, possibly taking action against them that may include bodily harm.

Despite the new passports’ flaws – which the Los Angeles Times says are nothing to lose sleep over – most everyone agrees that the changes are a much-needed improvement over the current RFID passport, which gained pariah status among security circles for notoriously weak security features.

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Tracking by sun: RFID goes solar

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

Solar-powered Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

Savi Technology, a unit of Lockheed Martin, has announced it recently began deploying solar-powered Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) readers and signposts located at a major U.S. Army supply facility in Kuwait. The solar-powered signposts activate RFID tags attached to vehicles or pieces of equipment. The tags then report the assets’ positions to nearby RFID readers, which relay the information to Savi Site Manager software that automatically updates the assets’ latest location.

According to Savi, use of solar energy provides an energy efficient and environmentally friendly power source for users’ RFID hardware, and also eliminates the need to install electrical infrastructure in remote areas where there is no fixed reader infrastructure. The tools installed in Kuwait enable the facility to track more than 25,000 tags per day. Plans are also underway with the U.S. Department of Defense to expand the use of solar-powered applications to other areas in the Middle East and beyond.

Solar-powered signposts

Savi Networks also operates a solar-powered RFID-based network in Colombia. There, Savi RFID signposts and readers are used to track the status and security of containerized cargo shipments managed by Emprevi Ltda., a Colombia-based provider of logistics and security services for major importers and exporters. Savi Networks, a joint venture in which Savi Technology holds a majority interest, installed solar-powered panels at strategic supply chain checkpoints, including source factories and port facilities, to monitor in-transit goods manufactured in and exported from Colombia.

http://fleetowner.com/news/savi_solar_powered_radio_frequency/

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School uniforms use RFID to track kids

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

Trevor Darnborough, whose company, Darnbro, filed for a patent on securing RFID tags to clothing, hopes other schools will be interested.

By Thomas Claburn

Ten schoolchildren in the United Kingdom are being tracked by RFID chips in their school uniforms as part of a pilot program.

If the program proves successful as a way to hasten registration, simplify data entry for the school’s behavioral reporting system, and ensure attendance, Trevor Darnborough, whose company, Darnbro, filed for a patent on securing RFID tags to clothing, hopes other schools will be interested, according to the Doncaster Free Press.

The chipped children are enrolled at Hungerhill School in Edenthorpe, England, a secondary school for ages 11 to 16.

David Clouter, a parent and founder of Leave Them Kids Alone, a children’s advocacy group, condemned the plan. “With pupils being fingerprinted and now this it seems we are treating children in a way that we have traditionally treated criminals,” he told the Doncaster Free Press.

“The system is not intrusive to the pupil in the slightest,” Hungerhill teacher Graham Wakeling told the Doncaster Free Press. He also said that all the patents of the children in the trial supported the tracking effort.

Video surveillance is already commonplace in the United Kingdom, and a growing number of schoolchildren are fingerprinted for administrative and security reasons. Since 2001, nearly 6,000 pupils have been fingerprinted in the United Kingdom, the Daily Mail reported earlier this month, with 20 new schools embracing the practice every week.

In a blog post about the report, security expert Bruce Schneier quipped, “So now it’s easy to cut class; just ask someone to carry your shirt around the building while you’re elsewhere.”

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London Paper Issues RFID Card

Sunday, September 30th, 2007

By Mary Catherine O’Connor

Selling newspapers in London is a tough game, but The Evening Standard is using RFID to gain a competitive edge. The popular daily paper, targeted at commuters who ride the London Underground subway system, sells between 200,000 and 300,000 copies per day, at a cost of £0.50 ($1.12) apiece. It must compete, however, with a bevy of free dailies (known as “freesheets”) with a combined daily circulation of around 900,000.

In an effort to expand its readership, entice readers to buy the paper more frequently and gather insights into the buying habits and interests of its readers, the Standard has launched an RFID-based loyalty/debit card. The paper’s managing director, Andrew Mullins, hopes readers will become enamored with the Eros Reward Card because of the discounts it offers on the newsstand price (the paper does not offer home delivery), as well as other perks, such as free song downloads from iTunes.

The card was rolled out this week at London’s Waterloo Underground station, Mullins says. Staffers have been signing up users, providing new enrollees an Eros card and using Web-enabled wireless PDAs to record their names and e-mail addresses. By the time the commuters reach their home or office, an e-mail message should already have arrived from the Standard, providing a link to a registration page where they can use their bank or a credit card account to load value on their Eros account.

The discount is determined by the specific amount loaded onto the card. For instance, loading £4 ($8.10) on the card provides a savings of £1 ($2.02), with the cardholder paying £0.40 ($0.81) apiece for 10 copies of the paper. Loading £34 ($68.82) on the card yields a per-paper cost of £0.34 ($0.69), a savings of £16 ($32.39) on 100 copies.

In addition to getting free music downloads, the card user also qualifies for discounts at select area restaurants and merchants. In exchange for the deals, readers must provide some personal information and agree to receive promotional e-mail messages from the Standard, but Mullins considers this a quid pro quo arrangement.

“There is a value exchange and a trust exchange,” Mullins explains. “You only give someone your information if you trust them, and the value exchange here is considerable. We might send an e-mail to cardholders that alerts them when they are running low on credits, and then also suggest that they buy the paper the next morning because we have a great feature on so-and-so.”

“We won’t start spamming [Eros card holders] from a whole bunch of advertisers,” Mullins adds, “which is tempting in the short term but disastrous in the long term.”

The Eros card employs the same technology as the Oyster card, an RFID-based fare payment card used by more than 10 million British commuters in the city’s subway and bus system. The high-frequency (13.56 MHz) passive inlay inside the Eros card contains a Mifare chip from NXP Semiconductors. The card contains a magnetic stripe onto which the customer’s account ID number is encoded; that number is also printed on the face of the card.

Unlike the Oyster card, however, the financial transaction is performed remotely with Eros. That is, the amount of money in the Eros account is stored on a server, and the transaction is performed through a payment network, via a message sent from the reader terminal containing the account ID encoded to the card’s RFID chip. In contrast, when a commuter uses an Oyster card, the interrogator deducts the fare’s value from an amount stored on the card.

The Evening Standard worked with several technology vendors to develop the card, Mullins says. TS3 Services Ltd., its lead integration partner, provided the application software that enables online registration and maintains the database card IDs and the value assigned to each card. TS3 Services also installed the RFID-enabled payment terminals—manufactured by Sagem—at the 15 newspaper vendors accepting the Eros cards, in and around the Waterloo station.

The company worked with Conchango, a business consultancy in the financial services industry, to develop an interface between the Eros software and the payments network to process transactions when cardholders load value onto their cards. Starting next month, the Standard plans to roll out the service to more than 30 subways stations and surrounding vendors.

According to Mullins, the Standard hopes the discounts will entice readers to use the Eros card to purchase the paper with a quick pass of the card over the reader, rather than buying another periodical using a MasterCard or Visa contactless card. Both credit card organizations are rolling out their respective RFID payment cards (PayPass and payWave), which banks in the United Kingdom are beginning to issue (see MasterCard Rolls Out Contactless Carpet in the U.K.). These cards are heavily marketed to commuters as a method of paying for inexpensive items, such as newspapers or coffee, without having to dig for bills or coins.

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Why the ban on mandatory RFID implants should be Federal

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

George Ou

The California legislature recently banned employers from mandating RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) implants for their employees.  While I’m glad I’m covered in my state, why isn’t this ban being implemented at the Federal level to cover every citizen?  I’m not suggesting that we ban the devices; I’m suggesting that no one should be forced to stick on of these in their body just to get a job.  I’ve covered the issue of RFID many times before and I’m not fundamentally opposed to RFID technology or RFID implants, but I do oppose the idea that anyone should be forced to implant one in their body and it would be just as offensive if my employer asked me to tattoo a bar code on to my forehead.

Verichip RFID implants are worthless from a security standpoint because they’re essentially passing clear text data over the radio waves and it can easily be cloned. If it’s cloned, you’ll have to undergo knife treatment to get a new one unless the chip is reprogrammable.  Even if Verichip stopped using clear text authentication and switched to strong NSA Suite B grade crypto, I wouldn’t want it inside my body.  Is any material item in this world worth life or limb?  If someone wants my access device and password at the point of a gun, I’d give it to them.  I don’t want them to have to cut it out of my body.

Last summer there were some issues raised about the privacy and safety of RFID enabled passports.  While the scenarios were arguably remote and the privacy concerns overblown because someone can copy the same information from a regular passport, there is no reason to have the RFID in the passport since an optical or contact based system would have the same effectiveness.  RFID in the traditional sense gives you more flexibility and convenience because of its long wireless range but the usable range for RFID passports is literally a few millimeters away.  RFID in the Passport implementation is effectively a contact based solution that has none of the flexibility but all of the security liabilities of a wireless solution.

What about the argument that we need RFID implants for our children?  I have two kids and I can tell you that RFID isn’t going to make me feel any better. First of all, that RFID implant isn’t going to be a “LoJack” device for children and you’re not going to be able to track them down if they’re abducted unless you’re within a few feet of the child. Second, having the RFID implant might mean the abductor will cut it out of your child to take out the implant.  I might consider an external device hidden in a watch or something that has an active transmitter with some effective range but implants are simply out of the question.

As critical of RFID as I am, I’m not so sure why some people are so anti-RFID that they don’t even want the devices to exist in the first place.  RFID implants can make sense in medical areas. If it makes it easier for emergency workers to identify a patient’s special needs, that’s great so long as the consumer gets to voluntarily place it in their own body.  There’s also new technology being developed for diabetics where the RFID sensor can wirelessly report glucose levels without you having to prick your finger every day.  RFID inventory tracking and logistics can simplify and automate many things so we must distinguish between good RFID devices and bad ones.

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Microchipping of Alzheimer’s patients begins in Florida

Monday, September 17th, 2007

By David Gutierrez

The Delray Beach, Fla.-based company VeriChip Corp. has announced plans to implant 200 Alzheimer’s patients in Palm Beach County with radio-frequency identification chips as part of a pilot study to test the new technology.

The VeriMed microchip is approximately the size of a grain of rice and contains a 16-digit patient identification number, which is available to anyone who scans the device with the right technology. This number can then be entered into a database to retrieve a patient’s medical information. The FDA has approved the chip for human implantation.

According to VeriChip’s CEO Scott Silverman, the VeriMed chip will eventually provide peace of mind to the families of Alzheimer’s patients by providing a safety net in case a patient should get lost.

“When an Alzheimer’s patient gets lost, once their arm is scanned, it would identify who they are and that they are an Alzheimer’s patient,” Silverman said.

The chip is not a GPS device, Silverman emphasized, and cannot be used to track people in whom it is implanted. All the participants in the two-year study are volunteers, and Silverman expressed pleasure with the study’s reception so far.

“We had an excellent turn-out at the educational seminars and virtually 100% enrollment,” he said. “This overwhelming acceptance underscores the value of the VeriMed system not only for Alzheimer’s patients, but their caregivers as well.”

But privacy and patients’ rights advocates have criticized the project, charging that it strips Alzheimer’s patients of their dignity.

The organization Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN), owner of the web sites spychips.com and antichips.com, has accused VeriChip of testing a potentially unsafe technology on the “most vulnerable” segment of the population, questioning whether Alzheimer’s patients are truly capable of giving their consent to be involved in such a study. CASPIAN has warned that the chips may cause adverse tissue reactions, problems with medical devices, electrical hazards and may place patients at risk of having their private information stolen.

Consumer health advocate Mike Adams added, “These Alzheimer’s patients are being used as guinea pigs as part of a campaign that intends to eventually microchip the entire population. Today, it’s senior citizens, pets and children… in the near future, it will be everyone.”

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McDonalds Starts RFID Trial in Korea

Sunday, September 16th, 2007

Evan Schuman

McDonalds is experimenting with the ultimate line-buster in South Korea, where customers purchase food on their cell phones, which then ring when the order is ready.

But this trial is much more an RFID effort than a traditional mobile experiment. Most of the phone’s communications capabilities and its display are barely used, with customers having to download a McDonalds application into their phone.

“At each table, there is an RFID reader and a menu that has built-in RFID chips. Customers plug the reader into their mobile phones and point them at the item on the menu that they wish to eat or drink,” said a story in The Korea Times.

“The bill is charged through the mobile phone. When the meal is ready, the system sends a short message to the phone so the customer can pick up the ready tray at a designated counter.”

The trial is being managed by McDonalds and South Korea’s SK Telecom, which has dubbed the effort the “Touch Order” menu. It was unveiled at McDonald’s Shinchon branch in western Seoul near Yonsei University.

The McDonalds trial is interesting, if for no other reason than it is demonstrating yet another way to deploy mobile commerce. Some use the phone’s calling capabilities and screen while others leverage the phone’s digital camera to do some 2D barcode-selling.

Payments can be handled through the cell phone’s number—as McDonalds is apparently doing in the South Korea trial—or through an embedded RFID chip, which turns the smartphone into something akin to a contactless credit card.

The McDonalds trial does this one step better, using an RFID interface through a physical plug-in but not at all for payment.

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Chip Implants Linked to Animal Tumors

Monday, September 10th, 2007

By TODD LEWAN

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients’ medical records almost instantly. The FDA found “reasonable assurance” the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005’s top “innovative technologies.”

But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had “induced” malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.

“The transponders were the cause of the tumors,” said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.

Leading cancer specialists reviewed the research for The Associated Press and, while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people.

To date, about 2,000 of the so-called radio frequency identification, or RFID, devices have been implanted in humans worldwide, according to VeriChip Corp. The company, which sees a target market of 45 million Americans for its medical monitoring chips, insists the devices are safe, as does its parent company, Applied Digital Solutions, of Delray Beach, Fla.

“We stand by our implantable products which have been approved by the FDA and/or other U.S. regulatory authorities,” Scott Silverman, VeriChip Corp. chairman and chief executive officer, said in a written response to AP questions.

The company was “not aware of any studies that have resulted in malignant tumors in laboratory rats, mice and certainly not dogs or cats,” but he added that millions of domestic pets have been implanted with microchips, without reports of significant problems.

“In fact, for more than 15 years we have used our encapsulated glass transponders with FDA approved anti-migration caps and received no complaints regarding malignant tumors caused by our product.”

The FDA also stands by its approval of the technology.

Did the agency know of the tumor findings before approving the chip implants? The FDA declined repeated AP requests to specify what studies it reviewed.

The FDA is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which, at the time of VeriChip’s approval, was headed by Tommy Thompson. Two weeks after the device’s approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Thompson left his Cabinet post, and within five months was a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options.

Thompson, until recently a candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, says he had no personal relationship with the company as the VeriChip was being evaluated, nor did he play any role in FDA’s approval process of the RFID tag.

“I didn’t even know VeriChip before I stepped down from the Department of Health and Human Services,” he said in a telephone interview.

Also making no mention of the findings on animal tumors was a June report by the ethics committee of the American Medical Association, which touted the benefits of implantable RFID devices.

Had committee members reviewed the literature on cancer in chipped animals?

No, said Dr. Steven Stack, an AMA board member with knowledge of the committee’s review.

Was the AMA aware of the studies?

No, he said.

—

Published in veterinary and toxicology journals between 1996 and 2006, the studies found that lab mice and rats injected with microchips sometimes developed subcutaneous “sarcomas” - malignant tumors, most of them encasing the implants.

- A 1998 study in Ridgefield, Conn., of 177 mice reported cancer incidence to be slightly higher than 10 percent - a result the researchers described as “surprising.”

- A 2006 study in France detected tumors in 4.1 percent of 1,260 microchipped mice. This was one of six studies in which the scientists did not set out to find microchip-induced cancer but noticed the growths incidentally. They were testing compounds on behalf of chemical and pharmaceutical companies; but they ruled out the compounds as the tumors’ cause. Because researchers only noted the most obvious tumors, the French study said, “These incidences may therefore slightly underestimate the true occurrence” of cancer.

- In 1997, a study in Germany found cancers in 1 percent of 4,279 chipped mice. The tumors “are clearly due to the implanted microchips,” the authors wrote.

Caveats accompanied the findings. “Blind leaps from the detection of tumors to the prediction of human health risk should be avoided,” one study cautioned. Also, because none of the studies had a control group of animals that did not get chips, the normal rate of tumors cannot be determined and compared to the rate with chips implanted.

Still, after reviewing the research, specialists at some pre-eminent cancer institutions said the findings raised red flags.

“There’s no way in the world, having read this information, that I would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family members,” said Dr. Robert Benezra, head of the Cancer Biology Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Before microchips are implanted on a large scale in humans, he said, testing should be done on larger animals, such as dogs or monkeys. “I mean, these are bad diseases. They are life-threatening. And given the preliminary animal data, it looks to me that there’s definitely cause for concern.”

Dr. George Demetri, director of the Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, agreed. Even though the tumor incidences were “reasonably small,” in his view, the research underscored “certainly real risks” in RFID implants.

In humans, sarcomas, which strike connective tissues, can range from the highly curable to “tumors that are incredibly aggressive and can kill people in three to six months,” he said.

At the Jackson Laboratory in Maine, a leader in mouse genetics research and the initiation of cancer, Dr. Oded Foreman, a forensic pathologist, also reviewed the studies at the AP’s request.

At first he was skeptical, suggesting that chemicals administered in some of the studies could have caused the cancers and skewed the results. But he took a different view after seeing that control mice, which received no chemicals, also developed the cancers. “That might be a little hint that something real is happening here,” he said. He, too, recommended further study, using mice, dogs or non-human primates.

Dr. Cheryl London, a veterinarian oncologist at Ohio State University, noted: “It’s much easier to cause cancer in mice than it is in people. So it may be that what you’re seeing in mice represents an exaggerated phenomenon of what may occur in people.”

Tens of thousands of dogs have been chipped, she said, and veterinary pathologists haven’t reported outbreaks of related sarcomas in the area of the neck, where canine implants are often done. (Published reports detailing malignant tumors in two chipped dogs turned up in AP’s four-month examination of research on chips and health. In one dog, the researchers said cancer appeared linked to the presence of the embedded chip; in the other, the cancer’s cause was uncertain.)

Nonetheless, London saw a need for a 20-year study of chipped canines “to see if you have a biological effect.” Dr. Chand Khanna, a veterinary oncologist at the National Cancer Institute, also backed such a study, saying current evidence “does suggest some reason to be concerned about tumor formations.”

Meanwhile, the animal study findings should be disclosed to anyone considering a chip implant, the cancer specialists agreed.

To date, however, that hasn’t happened.

—

The product that VeriChip Corp. won approval for use in humans is an electronic capsule the size of two grains of rice. Generally, it is implanted with a syringe into an anesthetized portion of the upper arm.

When prompted by an electromagnetic scanner, the chip transmits a unique code. With the code, hospital staff can go on the Internet and access a patient’s medical profile that is maintained in a database by VeriChip Corp. for an annual fee.

VeriChip Corp., whose parent company has been marketing radio tags for animals for more than a decade, sees an initial market of diabetics and people with heart conditions or Alzheimer’s disease, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The company is spending millions to assemble a national network of hospitals equipped to scan chipped patients.

But in its SEC filings, product labels and press releases, VeriChip Corp. has not mentioned the existence of research linking embedded transponders to tumors in test animals.

When the FDA approved the device, it noted some Verichip risks: The capsules could migrate around the body, making them difficult to extract; they might interfere with defibrillators, or be incompatible with MRI scans, causing burns. While also warning that the chips could cause “adverse tissue reaction,” FDA made no reference to malignant growths in animal studies.

Did the agency review literature on microchip implants and animal cancer?

Dr. Katherine Albrecht, a privacy advocate and RFID expert, asked shortly after VeriChip’s approval what evidence the agency had reviewed. When FDA declined to provide information, she filed a Freedom of Information Act request. More than a year later, she received a letter stating there were no documents matching her request.

“The public relies on the FDA to evaluate all the data and make sure the devices it approves are safe,” she says, “but if they’re not doing that, who’s covering our backs?”

Late last year, Albrecht unearthed at the Harvard medical library three studies noting cancerous tumors in some chipped mice and rats, plus a reference in another study to a chipped dog with a tumor. She forwarded them to the AP, which subsequently found three additional mice studies with similar findings, plus another report of a chipped dog with a tumor.

Asked if it had taken these studies into account, the FDA said VeriChip documents were being kept confidential to protect trade secrets. After AP filed a FOIA request, the FDA made available for a phone interview Anthony Watson, who was in charge of the VeriChip approval process.

“At the time we reviewed this, I don’t remember seeing anything like that,” he said of animal studies linking microchips to cancer. A literature search “didn’t turn up anything that would be of concern.”

In general, Watson said, companies are expected to provide safety-and-effectiveness data during the approval process, “even if it’s adverse information.”

Watson added: “The few articles from the literature that did discuss adverse tissue reactions similar to those in the articles you provided, describe the responses as foreign body reactions that are typical of other implantable devices. The balance of the data provided in the submission supported approval of the device.”

Another implantable device could be a pacemaker, and indeed, tumors have in some cases attached to foreign bodies inside humans. But Dr. Neil Lipman, director of the Research Animal Resource Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, said it’s not the same. The microchip isn’t like a pacemaker that’s vital to keeping someone alive, he added, “so at this stage, the payoff doesn’t justify the risks.”

Silverman, VeriChip Corp.’s chief executive, disagreed. “Each month pet microchips reunite over 8,000 dogs and cats with their owners,” he said. “We believe the VeriMed Patient Identification System will provide similar positive benefits for at-risk patients who are unable to communicate for themselves in an emergency.”

—

And what of former HHS secretary Thompson?

When asked what role, if any, he played in VeriChip’s approval, Thompson replied: “I had nothing to do with it. And if you look back at my record, you will find that there has never been any improprieties whatsoever.”

FDA’s Watson said: “I have no recollection of him being involved in it at all.” VeriChip Corp. declined comment.

Thompson vigorously campaigned for electronic medical records and healthcare technology both as governor of Wisconsin and at HHS. While in President Bush’s Cabinet, he formed a “medical innovation” task force that worked to partner FDA with companies developing medical information technologies.

At a “Medical Innovation Summit” on Oct. 20, 2004, Lester Crawford, the FDA’s acting commissioner, thanked the secretary for getting the agency “deeply involved in the use of new information technology to help prevent medication error.” One notable example he cited: “the implantable chips and scanners of the VeriChip system our agency approved last week.”

After leaving the Cabinet and joining the company board, Thompson received options on 166,667 shares of VeriChip Corp. stock, and options on an additional 100,000 shares of stock from its parent company, Applied Digital Solutions, according to SEC records. He also received $40,000 in cash in 2005 and again in 2006, the filings show.

The Project on Government Oversight called Thompson’s actions “unacceptable” even though they did not violate what the independent watchdog group calls weak conflict-of-interest laws.

“A decade ago, people would be embarrassed to cash in on their government connections. But now it’s like the Wild West,” said the group’s executive director, Danielle Brian.

Thompson is a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, a Washington law firm that was paid $1.2 million for legal services it provided the chip maker in 2005 and 2006, according to SEC filings.

He stepped down as a VeriChip Corp. director in March to seek the GOP presidential nomination, and records show that the company gave his campaign $7,400 before he bowed out of the race in August.

In a TV interview while still on the board, Thompson was explaining the benefits - and the ease - of being chipped when an interviewer interrupted:

“I’m sorry, sir. Did you just say you would get one implanted in your arm?”

“Absolutely,” Thompson replied. “Without a doubt.”

“No concerns at all?”

“No.”

But to date, Thompson has yet to be chipped himself.

—

On the Web:

http://www.verichipcorp.com

http://www.antichips.com

http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/

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Holes in the wall to see PINs in our eyes

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

Daily Mail

Bank customers could soon enter their PIN codes at cash machines just by looking at the numbers in the right order.

The system is designed to beat fraudsters looking over your shoulder to see which keys you press.

The technology, called EyePassword, is being developed in America - and High Street banks in Britain are already interested in using it.

It works by shining an infrared light on your eye. This stays in the same spot on your eye no matter where you look.

As you gaze at the cash dispenser key pad, your pupil moves. When your eye comes to rest on a number, a camera compares the position of your pupil with the fixed light in your eye.

The system is then able to work out which direction your pupil has moved in and how far and, therefore, which number you are looking at.

EyePassword has a three per cent error rate and it can take six times longer to enter your pin.

But Lloyds, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland have expressed an interest in the technology.

However, its inventor, Manu Kumar, of California’s Stanford University, warned: “There are lots of issues to be resolved, probably the biggest one being cost.”

Computer security specialist Dr Jeff Yan, of Newcastle University, said cash dispensers using EyePassword could cost £5,000, £3,000 more than a conventional ATM.

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MICROCHIPPING CHILDREN FOR THEIR ‘SAFETY’

Tuesday, August 14th, 2007

By Tom Shelley

Last month’s ‘appeal’ to identify technologies that could prevent child abduction has moved forward rapidly

In a letter published last month, prompted by the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, design engineer Peter Fitzsimmons challenged Eureka readers to come up with a device to track lost children. Several readers have written with suggestions – two RFID-based ideas, one of which is in production, are highlighted here.
At the same time, two competing satellite-based systems – one British, one French – have also been launched recently.
Maidstone-based Blue Tree Services launched its OurKids child tracking system in the UK and Ireland earlier this year. The device comes in two parts: children wear the Blueranger unit, supplied with a belt similar to a money belt or with a pocket that can be attached to any item. Parents track their child’s movements through BlueMap software either on the internet or via a hand-held PDA. The latter shows its location as well as that of the monitored units.
The portable units use GPS and the cell phone network to send positioning information – accurate within 4m – to secure servers. These then relay information, which shows the unit location within the UK or Europe.
The company says: “Although it has been possible for people to carry alarms for some time, these were either linked to a physical location or allowed for only single location requests. With OurKids, continuous tracking avoids the problems associated with not having a ‘position fix’ at critical moments – there is always a ‘breadcrumb trail’.”
The units incorporate a movement sensor, which detects whether it is being worn –and not left in backpack at a friend’s house – or if it has suffered a shock such as a fall.
Parents can also set up boundaries through GPS mapping. The system alerts them if the child moves beyond a predetermined area. Height can also be set as a parameter – perhaps to ensure the child isn’t taking part in a dangerous Quidditch match? Other features include an emergency alarm, which lets children tell parents if they are in trouble.
Managing director Mike Smuts said: “We have seen a huge demand for this product from across all sectors of society. This is a robust and easy to wear product. It’s good to know that parents can allow their children a little more freedom and at the same time manage their independence.”
French firm Car Telematics has a long waiting list for its Kiditel device according to the BBC. It will be released in the UK soon, and can be put in a pocket or bag. The GPS tracking device beams satellite images of a child’s location to the home computer. It has an SOS button, which sends an SMS and position coordinates to a predefined mobile number if the child is in trouble. A parent can call the child back to find out what the problem is.
Development director Franck Spinelli told the BBC that the Kiditel was popular with parents of young children.
Neither of these devices would prevent a kidnapping, and there would be nothing to stop the abductor disposing of the device once found on the child. However, both systems could give police vital information on the child’s whereabouts before he or she went missing.
Reader Paul Clarke proposed an RFID solution, which could overcome these difficulties. Citing the current level of integration of CCTV systems, he says: “If there was a similar initiative to link the RFID systems used by shops to catch shoplifters, it would be possible to search for an RFID tag that could be surgically implanted under a child’s skin or inserted into the fabric of their clothing.
“Potentially this could be an international initiative that would mean that if an abductor attempted to take a chipped child into a store that subscribed to the service, store detectives would be notified and by cross-referencing with CCTV footage one could determine the identity of the individual [abducting a child].”
Surgically implanting an RFID chip under a child’s skin seems a little Orwellian, though putting it into the fabric of clothes seems more acceptable. Are parents likely to go to such extremes to ensure kids are safe, or is it a step too far?
However, as reader Roger Bamford pointed out, one US firm has already designed a human-implantable RFID chip. VeriChip has developed a passive RFID microchip, inserted under the skin by injection, which contains a unique 16-digit identifier. The number on the chip – which can be read with a proprietary scanner – could be used to access medical records, or determine whether someone has the authority to enter a secure area, the company says.
Verichip has also designed wearable active RFID chips, designed for use within care homes or hospital wards. The chips sound an alarm if patients – for instance, those with Alzheimer’s – leave a designated area. It can even lock an exit as a patient approaches it. The chips can also be used to prevent the abduction of newborns by raising the alarm if the baby is removed from the ward.

www.verichipcorp.com/

www.bluetreeservices.co.uk

www.kiditel.com/en/

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