IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2017 - 49

military personnel. It does so by analyzing the law in a
single jurisdiction, Australia. The rationale for choosing
Australia as the jurisdiction is threefold. First, the extent
to which military decision making bodies can operate
has been established by the High Court of Australia. As
will be described, the High Court has caused the establishment of an Australian Military Court to be reversed.
Second, the High Court of Australia has also considered
issues associated with reactions to vaccinations by a
serviceman and this has consequences for the analysis
of implants. Third, Australia does not have either a Bill
of Rights or a Human Rights Act. The constitution provides a limited set of express rights, and others have
been developed, sometimes creatively, by the High
Court and by limited legislative reforms. As a result, the
analysis of the extent to which military justice has
removed rights in respect of implants can be determined. The effect is that the analysis provided may not
apply in jurisdictions with greater human rights protections. In addition to these three matters, in New South
Wales, which is home to a quarter of the population of
Australia, most people are aware of RFID implants. This
flows from a requirement that companion animals such
as cats and dogs have RFID implants and that these are
ISO-compliant (ISO 117784) full duplex devices.
This article commences by considering the literature on the risks and acceptability of implantation of
RFID devices. It starts by looking at risks to animals
and then moves on to human risk. The risk section
ends by considering the potential benefits and potential tactical risks from implantation of RFID devices in
a military context.
The next step is an analysis of the differences
between the law that applies to everyone in Australia
and the additional impositions imposed by "military
law" and how that law has been interpreted by Australian Courts.
The next section of the article then considers
implantation. It does this by comparing the issues of
implantation of an RFID device with issues associated
with vaccination. In the Australian context, childhood
vaccination is not mandatory. However, failure of a parent to procure that their child is vaccinated limits
access to social security payments and excludes the
child from public education if there is an outbreak of a
vaccine-preventable disease in the school.

Radio Frequency Identification Devices
RFID devices generally consist of a silicon device that
holds information, an inductor, and a capacitor. The
device is passive. A reader "illuminates" the device by
transmitting at the resonant frequency of the capacitor
inductor pair. This provides power to allow the silicon
device to transmit the information that is stored on it.
march 2017

∕

RFID devices designed for implantation in animals and
complying with relevant International Standards Organisation (ISO) standards have a resonant frequency of
125/134.2 kHz in the low frequency (LF) band. This contrasts with the resonant frequency used in "smart card"
devices of about 13.56 MHz in the high frequency band.
Ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID devices operating at
432 MHz are also standardized by ISO.
The range of LF devices is small and the communicating device needs to be within a few centimeters of
the surface of the skin in order to communicate with it.
Implanted UHF RFID devices have a potential range of
10 meters [1].

Medical Applications of Radio Frequency
Identification Devices
The general use of RFID devices for health care purposes may be acceptable to the general public [2]-[7]. For

The ability to identify military
personnel without the need for
"dog tags" worn around the neck,
could be beneficial.

example, a study of 650 respondents in Slovenia in
2014 found that attitudes towards adoption of microchips depend on personal characteristics and on the
characteristics of microchips. The biggest concern of
the respondents was the possibility of GPS tracking of
microchips [8]. The use of RFID devices in medical
applications includes glucose monitoring and orthopaedic prosthesis identification [9], including measurement
of the operating characteristics of the orthopaedic prosthesis in vitro [10], [11]. Medical applications use LF
RFID devices and there has also been investigation of
implant antenna design at UHF [12].

Likely Military Devices
If an implant is used in a military environment, the first
application is likely to be the replacement of other
forms of identification such as an identity necklace
(commonly known as "dog tags"). The U.S. army dog tag
includes the military service person's name (first last
and middle initial), blood group, religion, and identification number. The U.S. Army used the person's social
security number for a period after the Second World
War, and this was replaced with an army identifier in

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

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