Chinese Olympics Tickets to Include Your Passport Info, Home Address on RFID Chip

Chinese Olympics Tickets to Include Your Passport Info, Home Address on RFID Chip [Privacy]

from Gizmodo by Adam Frucci

Anyone attending the Olympics in Beijing this summer is going to find something unexpected embedded in their tickets: their passport information, home address and email address. All of these details will be nicely embedded in an RFID chip in each ticket. The move is designed to curb counterfeiting tickets in the counterfeit-happy country, but it certainly raises some privacy alarms.

First off, people other than Olympics officials may figure out a way to read the information from the wireless cards, creating a huge breach of privacy. I personally wouldn't want to walk around with all that information embedded in a simple sporting even ticket, nor would I want the Chinese government to have possession of all my personal info forever after.

On the other side of the coin, some worry that the technical scanning of the tickets at the gates could make getting into events a slow, torturous affair. All this for only $720 a ticket!

If all that stuff about China squashing human rights and free speech didn't dissuade you from attending the games, however, I doubt this will change your mind. [Gadget Lab]