By  Renee Boucher Ferguson
It's illegal now for California employers to force anyone to have an RFID device implanted under his or her skin as a condition of receiving something—such as a paycheck or government benefits.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 362 on Oct. 15, prohibiting the forced implantation of RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips. The bill, authored by state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2008.
The anti-tagging bill, now a law, is not the first piece of privacy-based RFID legislation authored by Simitian to pass the governor's desk. A little more than a year ago Gov. Schwarzenegger quietly vetoed SB 768, also known as the Identity Information and Protection Act of 2006, which would regulate the use of RFID in state and local documents.
At the time, the bill was thought by many to be a call for other states to enact similar legislation. But when that effort failed, so did the hopes that California's actions would spur additional state legislatures to address RFID-related privacy concerns.
In the wake of the 2006 veto, Simitian took the next feasible step. He broke the Identity Information and Protection Act into smaller bits and shipped ...   more »