As you said, they save companies money by not having to have people to do inventory. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Depends which side of the coin you are on.

Could they be used for nefarious purposes? Of course they can – all things can.

How great a distance is a great distance? How close does the offender need to be to get the data? As seen in the video, proximity isn’t an issue. How about the doorways that are set up to scan RFID tags as a person takes tagged items through? Could that not be used to scan tags in personal items as a person is entering, say, a sporting event?

It’s not one technology in particular to consider – there are so many that make it easier for someone to be invasive in your life. These same technologies can all be very beneficial as well, and I urge everyone to consider both sides before drinking the marketing Kool-Aid.

RFID systems are making our world safer by preventing counterfeit parts from going into airplane repair facilities (MRO) or keeping surgical sponges from being mistakenly left inside a patient.

The Hitachi Mu chips referenced, like all passive RFID tags, are bound by the laws of physics and the inverse square law of RF propagation. Essentially the smaller the tag the smaller the read range. The Mu chip has a read range of under a centimeter.

Don’t fall for Hollywood conspiracy theories, a passive UHF tag can not be inhaled, injected or implanted and read outside the body at great distances. It’s simply impossible. Worry more about the phone company’s GPS capability in your mobile phone and their data mining of your behavior.