Originally Posted by jkhuggins

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating one position or another on this issue. But I've read up on it quite a bit.

While the RFID tag may not have any personal information on it ... it is still a unique ID being broadcast to anyone with a scanner. Experiments have shown that such RFID tags can be surreptitiously read from a considerable distance.

There are at least two scenarios that could give someone pause, depending on your level of paranoia.

• Relatively few countries issue RFID passports; those that do tend to be the more affluent countries. In a large crowd, someone with an RFID scanner could use a scanner to target citizens of those affluent countries for theft (or worse), since they'd be more likely to be carrying valuables.
• Sure, the RFID number doesn't contain any personal information. Neither does your Social Security number (other than state of issuance). Yet, because of overuse, the Social Security number has become associated with a great deal of personal information regarding the bearer --- so much so that one should never share the number with anyone who doesn't need it for an officially-sanctioned purpose. RFID numbers could end up in the same situation ... except that, as noted above, RFID tags can be scanned without the bearer's knowledge.