All dogs are to be compulsorily microchipped so that their owners can be more easily traced under a crackdown on dangerous dogs to be unveiled today.
The package will include extending the dangerous dogs law to cover attacks by dogs on private property to protect postmen, and making third-party insurance compulsory so that victims can be financially compensated.
The measures will be set out by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, who will point to rising public concern that “status dogs” are being used by some irresponsible owners to intimidate communities or as a weapon by gangs.
[…]
Johnson is expected to give details of the package in a speech on crime and antisocial behaviour.“Britain is a nation of animal lovers, but people have a fundamental right to feel safe on the streets and in their homes,” he said. “The vast majority of dog owners are responsible, but there is no doubt that some people breed and keep dogs for the sole purpose of intimidating others, in a sense using dogs as a weapon.”
#28, no question.
covert reading of RFID is (IMO) one of the most dangerous to liberty technologies out there. It’s just too easy and cheap to subvert.
That’s why EPC standard RFID tags for retail tagging have a non-recoverable “KILL” function on them – to prevent your underwear or your shoes from leaving a tell-tale track.
RFID is by far the easiest and most reliable means to implement “Minority Report” (the movie) style tracking of individual humans. Much easier than retinal or iris scanning.
Olo Baggins, #31, I have worked on the LF, HF, and UHF tags and systems. Was one of the founders of the MIT AutoID Center and a father of EPC along with others in the merry band of co-conspirators in the late 90’s.
Naturally, most efforts were in UHF EPC and also realization of ultra-cheap printed polymer electronic HF tagging for EPC.
No dogs were used in the testing. TIRIS was developed for livestock in Europe where they are pretty serious about meat quality. Max range on the TIRIS that I personally can attest are a little over a meter with legal readers, several meters if you are unconstrained by the law. Wet salty meat is not exactly the best substrate to have around RFID. But… Your wallet is the place to really watch. There is enough standoff space there for some very good antenna gain tricks in UHF.
RSweeney, those livestock tags hang on ears, is that right? I guess I’m mainly curious what happens when they’re under skin.
fwiw about four years ago I helped develop and write an RFID training program and test prep for CompTIA’s RFID+. Random fact…we get tags that won’t stay dead when killed. I think they come from Alien.
Baggins, the livestock tags in Europe are subcutaneous injection, same as used here for pets.
As for tags that don’t stay killed, as I recall, Alien had a fake kill that was really a “be silent until you get the extra special magic code”. This doesn’t meet the EPC standard for kill. The real kill is irreversible – or at least it was when I left EPC Global and the AutoID Lab in 2005.
“Britain is a nation of animal lovers, but people have a fundamental right to feel safe on the streets and in their homes.”
Uh, maybe if the Brits had not been disarmed, they wouldn’t need to resort to owning a lethal animal.
Gun Control? -check
Animal Control? -check
People Control? -check
Actually my beagle is chipped. The little fart is an escape artist when it comes to getting out of a dog run pen or wireless fenced yard. Twice animal control picked him up and I got a phone call at work that he was loose. I am happy I did it. As far as chipping kids mine are to old and most can be found with a cell phone today.
I’ve got mixed feelings on this.
I don’t want anyone to track my whereabouts, yet I use my debit card everywhere I go.
I want my anonymity, yet I want my medical history available instantly when it’s needed most.
Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks?
Probably.
Somebody else suggested this could be a move by the banks to reduce credit card fraud. To do this thing, you chip the hand and use a biometric scanner to confirm with the fingerprint. Easier and faster than swiping your credit card and more than enough security for the application. At first it’ll be voluntary, the banks will draw people in with special interest rates etc. Eventually, these things become mandatory and sensors will be everywhere logging and networking our every move.
That’s when I go to the mountains to live in a cave.
I agree, the chip looks like a beer bottle w/ condom. Inspired design!
Do you 666 guys ever come off the slippery slope? There’s dry land over here!
I wouldn’t mind getting chipped. As long as the chip is removable should I decide to do it? And no, it is not possible to track people using the current chips to track people at least now. At some point if entry into any place requires a chip then it could in theory be used to track people by networking the sites together. At that point I would say it is time to remove the chip. As for the mark of the beast argument, in the past the six pointed star and rings used to emboss wax seals on contracts were also called the mark of the beast. I don’t hear anyone complain about those now. There is nothing to indicate that the microchip is anything different.