RFID

Spy-chip - possibly the scariest technology coming into use right now. They're tiny chips, some as small as a third of a millimetre, which can be hidden inside objects, packaging and even people, and which give a unique identity symbol if triggered by a scanner. In other words, every banknote, shoe or pair of jeans might have a unique ID allowing anyone with a scanner to track it - the government could find out your whereabouts and where you bought your clothes, criminals could scan you to find out how much money you were carrying and ID cards, passports etc could contain chips which could be scanned from a distance. Currently being introduced by WalMart in products and packaging, with 100 other companies interested. Euro banknotes might contain the chips. A version which can be injected in humans, the VeriChip, is now being tested, and several US states including New York are discussing forcibly injecting the chips in homeless people.