Researchers in Nijmegen, The Netherlands are planning on publishing the details of how they managed to hack the chip used in London’s Oyster Card and other security and transit systems after a Dutch court ruled they were allowed to do so.

As if it wasn’t bad enough to have a jacket that can track your child’s every movement, parents now think it’s a great idea to put RFID chips in their children’s school uniforms so they can keep track of them even when they’ve taken off their nifty Blade Runner jackets.

A little over a year ago, two Citywatcher.com employees had themselves chipped as a means of restricting access to sensitive vault areas that contained data held for police departments.

RFID is now in nearly everything from passports to credit cards to animals. Even some humans have voluntarily chipped themselves. RFID is becoming so prevalent that, although the FDA approved human implants, some American States are banning the forced chipping of its residents. Now, the American Medical Association (AMA) has stated its concern of serious privacy risks due to RFID implants.

The good news is that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is abandoning their plans to embed RFID chips in the arrival and departure forms used by foreign nationals visiting the USA. The bad news is that they are testing a data mining program, whose purpose is to identify terrorists by collecting information on average American citizens, including their flight and hotel reservations.

This year the news media has taken steps to reveal the many uses for RFID to the general public but most people do not know that RFID has been in existence and common use for several years. What people do not know is how many systems have been using this technology because they simply do not equate the use of a simple convenience with a technology that could also invade their privacy later on.