Newswise — Amal Graafstra doesn't have a chip on his shoulder. But he does have one in his hand. Two, in fact.
Graafstra, a computer technician, decided one day in 2005 that he was tired of carrying his keys. He disliked losing keys or leaving them behind, and he surmised that there must be a simpler way. The technology of radio frequency identification, or RFID, caught his eye, and it wasn't long before he found himself sitting in a doctor's office, his hand numbed, as a cosmetic surgeon carefully slipped a tag underneath his skin.
Radio frequency identification technology can transmit identifying information about a person or object wirelessly, using radio waves. These tiny tags, which consist of a chip and an antenna, have been used for more than a decade in applications like managing inventory--but only recently have they started catching on with humans.
Graafstra is one of the first to use RFID to replace the locks in his life, and he writes in IEEE Spectrum about how he rigged his life to be compatible with his new chip. No longer does he carry keys to his apartment, car or motorcycle. Instead, he holds his hand up to an RFID reader, which is a device that can communicate with the chip, and a fraction of a second later he's on his way. The method seemed to work so well that his girlfriend also agreed to get implants--RFID ones, not the other controversial kind--so they could share cars and homes and computers with keyless, passwordless abandon.
But is it safe? Graafstra writes about experiments he and others have conducted to test the security of RFID lock systems. The future is murky, and he describes the reasoning behind his decision to implant a second, more sophisticated, chip, to feel safer about the technology inside his body.
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