North Dakota has followed Wisconsin in banning the forced RFID chipping in humans.

The two-sentence bill, passed by the state legislature, was signed into law by Gov. John Hoeven last Wednesday. Essentially, it forbids anyone from compelling someone else to have an RFID chip injected into their skin. The state follows in the steps of Wisconsin, which passed similar legislation last year.

“We need to strike a balance as we continue to develop this technology between what it can do and our civil liberties, our right to privacy,” Hoeven said in an interview. He emphasized that the law doesn’t prohibit voluntary chipping. Military personnel who want an RFID chip injected so they can be more easily tracked will still be allowed to get a chip. There are also potential uses for the technology in corrections or in monitoring animals, he noted.

But Michael Shamos, a professor who specializes in security issues at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, believes the law is too vague to do much good. For instance, it only addresses situations where a chip is injected, even though RFID tags can also be swallowed. And it doesn’t clearly define what a forced implant really is; someone could make chipping a requirement for a financial reward.

While the intent of the law is clear, Shamos is right, it is rife for abuse.

“Suppose I offer to pay you $10,000 if you have an RFID [chip] implanted?” he asked. “Is that ‘requiring’ if it’s totally voluntary on your part?”  The idea behind the law isn’t bad, but “it looks hastily drawn and will have unpredictable consequences,” said Shamos.

Still, it is a start and privacy advocates have taken another step in preventing forced chipping.  RFID advocates, on the other hand, believe that forced chipping is good for certain situations, such as tracking prisoners or children, as well as keeping track of Alzheimer’s patients. I do not concur.

Some believe that it is just hype that people can be tracked at distances more than a few feet.  They claim that, with a prisoner, the RFID chip will only be activated when walking into a courtroom, into a prison bus, or moving throughout the prison when the chip is activated by a receiver in close proximity.  They do not believe that the RFID chip can be read at distances or tracked at extended ranges.  This simply is not true.

It has been proved that RFID can be read at great distances.  By allowing the forced chipping of individuals, the technology will only grow to the point that you can track people over great distances, possibly with the use of some GPS enabled device and a satellite.  It is not a great leap of imagination to see RFID implementation at great distances in the near future.

While I have written at length on the negative implications of chipping people, the disgusting situation is that this is even a topic for discussion.  It’s even worse that we have to create new legislation to make such ideas illegal.  To those that wish to make forced chipping a reality, I say, “Keep your damned technology away from my body.”

I don’t want to be tracked.  If I don’t want to take my medicine, you do not have the right to force some chip into me to make sure that I took it.  If I you want to know how one drug is interacting with another in my body, look at my symptoms and ask me.  I don’t want my medicine dispensed internally.  I want you to leave me alone to be my own private self.  Technology is a great thing.  Keep your RFID chips in tracking cargo shipments.  I don’t need them.