Frequently Asked Questions

Can RFID be embedded in money?

It’s possible but so far, no country has used RFID tags in this way. Hitachi, the Japanese high-technology company, has developed a very tiny RFID chip, called the mu-chip, designed to help governments prevent the counterfeiting of passports, securities and other documents. There have been reports that the European Union and Japan are considering embedding these chips in large bills, but officials of the EU Bank and the Bank of Japan told RFID Journal that they had no plans to use RFID in bills as of mid-2004. Even if it is technically possible, it’s not clear that the benefits would outweigh the huge costs of the infrastructure needed to make RFID an effective anti-counterfeiting tool. Also, there would likely be strong opposition from privacy advocates (as well as companies that do business mostly in cash).