RFID bills to be considered tomorrow

LA Daily News, via Rough&Tumble:

SACRAMENTO - Forgot your company identification badge at home? That wouldn't be a problem if employees had a small identification device about the size of a grain of rice inserted under their skin instead of a badge.

If that seems Orwellian to you, state Sen. Joe Simitian may have a solution. He's introduced a bill that would bar an employer or anyone else from requiring a person to have one of the devices implanted.

The measure is one of a series of bills the Palo Alto Democrat has proposed to control the use of so-called radio frequency identification devices, which can be placed in badges, passports, driver's licenses and on bodies to transmit radio signals with identifying information.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider four of the bills Tuesday.

They also include measures that would bar use of RFIDs in driver's licenses and student identification badges before 2011 and set privacy-protection standards for RFIDs.

A fifth bill by Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, is also on the committee's agenda. It would require companies that issue identification cards or other items containing RFIDs to disclose the personal information that would be revealed by the RFID and what steps they've taken to protect that information.