Written By Louis Sirico

Earlier this month, SB 362, introduced by Senator Joe Simitian, (D-Palo Alto, CA), was unanimously passed by California lawmakers. The new law, which goes into affect on January 1, 2008, protects a person from being forced to have an 'identification device' subcutaneously implanted. The law defines an “Identification device”as "anything that is passively or actively capable of transmitting personal information, including, but not limited to, devices using radio frequency technology".

This is one of the bills I wrote about this past July (found here: Getting Personal to Prevent Banning RFID). After publishing this article, and contacting the offices of Senator Simitian, Senator Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro, CA), and California Governor Schwarzenegger , the bill was amended from 'any unique identifier' to 'any unique personal identifier' as per our recommendation. I consider the passing of the bill to be a huge victory. Everyone I have spoken to in our community agrees that no one should be forced to have a tag implanted under their skin.

California is not the first state to do this. Wisconsin passed Act 482, in May 2006, and North Dakota in April, 2007. Colorado and Ohio are reviewing similar bills while Florida and Oklahoma choose not to pass what their lawmakers proposed.

Photo courtesy of VeriChip Corp

Given that, all the new laws still allow people to choose to have an RFID tag implanted. The Attorney General of Mexico and 18 members of his staff choose to implant a Verichip (see image left), an FDA approved 12-millimeter, glass-covered RFID tag, in the fatty tissue of their upper arm. The primary purposes are stated 'as verification when entering high security areas' and 'faster access to medical records'. These guys aren't the only ones. Verichip reports over 2,000 people have been tagged. As Orwellian as this sounds, I wrote about this being done at Barcelona beach club back in November of 2004. The patrons volunteered to put RFID under their skin simply to prevent needing to carry their wallet around in their bathing suit. Click here to read the entire article. Personally, I prefer to use a wrist-band tag and live with the tan lines - but that's my choice.

Two-thirds of all bills introduced in state legislatures are filed at the request of state or local government agencies, business associations, social activist groups, companies, or individual citizens. Most of those are brought to the legislature by legislative advocates, or lobbyists.