British getting bugged by RFID tags on trash cans

Filed in archive Privacy and Security on February 26, 2007

Britain has installed closed circuit cameras and people are under the scanner of these equipments which can be found almost everywhere and on an average there is a chance that a person may be captured on these camera three hundred times in a day. The government has even gone ahead and fitted the trash cans with microchips for keeping a watch on their garbage which they say will help them in boosting the national recycling rate which is considered to be one of the lowest in Europe.

Already angered by the cameras it seems that the people of Britain have vented out their anger on these microchips and one of the newspapers even came out with this headline - 'Germans plant bugs in our wheelie bins' This seems a bit crazy. U.K has also seen some small scale revolts on this issue. A number of people have already ripped off these chips from the trash cans.

I feel amazed to know that how come people are reacting in such a manner to these tags on their garbage cans even though around 4.2 million CCTVs are keeping a watchful eye on them in schools, streets, parks and even churches and if you are Britain then you are bound to encounter one of the cameras near vending machines, phone booths and even the famous double - decker buses in London.

Probably more than spying it seems people have a fear in their minds that the information collected would be used for charging them for garbage hauling and as a result the poor RFID tags have become a target of their anger which has been brewing as a result of the CCTVs being used to keep a tab on them even though they have been installed for their security.