Big Brother via Radio?

Radio Frequency tags (RFID) are small devices that store data that identifies the object to which they are attached. They have been called "smart barcodes" and are intended to take over many of the jobs of those ubiquitous black and white stripes. For example, Tesco are investigating them for tracking customer purchases for stock control and marketing purposes.

Interesting article from the BBC News website that suggests that more than 270 billion radio-frequency ID tags could be sold around the world by 2016! This is slightly worrying as there is a concern that these devices could track people and their whereabouts - creating issues about personal privacy. However, the sheer amount of data for companies is astounding.

The full article and detail is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6055296.stm