A few days ago FT.Com ran a story (available here) about an Ohio company that has embedded RFID (radio frequency ID) technology in two of its employees.
Ostensibly, this is just a test to see if RFID tags - tiny chips that can transmit data to local electronic readers - will provide a reliable, cheap way of monitoring and controlling access to sensitive company information and resources. According to the CEO of CityWatcher, the company that conducted the test, the RFID chips they used function much in the same way as identity cards - though they are implanted in the upper right-arm of the recipient. And to put this test in context, one should note RFID chips have been used in Japan to keep track of youngsters.
It sounds like the company had a reasonable objective, and at this point employees have not been coerced into the program. Nevertheless, one might wonder whether an Orwellian technology synergy is just around the corner. Many privacy advocates insist that although there may be legitimate uses for technologies like RFID, new surveillance tools are not an unqualified good and should only be adopted after careful study of their probable benefits and drawbacks.
Perhaps such advocates have unconsented monitoring in mind: perhaps these workers could be subject to surveillance outside the physical boundaries of CityWatcher. And maybe it's not a good idea to give private companies carte blanche to monitor their workers - with new productivity-monitoring software, email monitoring policies, and the like, perhaps we are just too readily convinced of the proposition that employers have the right to monitor employees at their caprice.
In any event, RFID will likely be at the center of a lot of privacy debates in the near future.