However, Halamka says there are privacy concerns that should be addressed. He points out that an RFID scanner the• oretically could record his presence while he was making a purchase, and on a repeat visit it would be possible to identify him and his previous purchases using that information for marketing purposes. "Spam, generated by the presence of your body, is theoretically possible," he says. He says there's no leg• islation to preclude RFID scanning of an individual for anony• mous tracking, which could be "analogous to the spyware and adware infecting our computers after surfing Internet sites." The potential for hacker abuse shouldn't be underestimated, he adds. The security issue "must be understood as one of the risks of having an implanted identifier," Halamka says.
Nonetheless, he has listed his identifier as part of his medical record in the Beth Israel Deaconess medical record system, called Care Web, so that a physician, with his consent, could enter the RFID tag information to retrieve his medical history. "I have no regrets," Halamka says about the whole implant experience, even though removing the chip would require minor surgery. And he would consider upgrading himself with a new chip, too, should a better one come along.