Technology Impacts

London - Monitored by millions of cameras and spied on by a secretive domestic intelligence network, Britons could be forgiven for feeling up in arms over the latest threat to their privacy: Intelligent garbage bins that can monitor how much they throw out.

Although the technology is already nearly a decade old, a U.K. privacy rights group says the number of local authorities fitting their trash bins with sensors of some kind has risen dramatically in the past year - affecting at least 2.6 million British households.

Big Brother Watch says the practice could lead to Britons being charged for how much they throw out - and effectively allow the government to go through their garbage.

“Placing microchips in bins capable of monitoring the content of weight of household refuse produces yet another piece of data for the state on an individual’s private life it has no right to have,” the group said in a report published Friday.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-britain-waste-watchers,0,3791290.story

A collaborative program is helping doctors track and treat the incidence of pneumonia in their patients by scanning NFC-based RFID tags on infants’ bracelets.

via Tracking System Benefits Pakistani Infants, Doctors - RFID Journal.

New rules requiring passports or new high-tech documents to cross the United States‘ northern and southern borders take effect today, as some rue the tightening of security and others hail it as long overdue.

The rules are being implemented nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks and long after the 9/11 Commission recommended the changes.

They were delayed by complaints from state officials who worried the restrictions would hinder the flow of people and commerce and affect border towns dependent on international crossings.

In 2001, a driver’s license and an oral declaration of citizenship were enough to cross the Canadian and Mexican borders; Monday’s changes are the last step in a gradual ratcheting up of the rules. Now thousands of Americans are preparing by applying for passports or obtaining special driver’s licenses that also can be used to cross the border. Read the rest of this entry »