The IT Nerd

I’ll start by explaining where this question comes from. The CBC reported yesterday that credit and debit cards with RFID chips can easily be accessed using smartphones and apps that grab this sort of info. This is called “skimming” and this is something that is common in Europe with not only credit cards, but with RFID enabled passports. I’m not surprised by this as I once had a incident several years ago where I was buying a coffee at Tim Horton’s and I accidentally paid for it using my MasterCard rather than the cash I was intending to use due to the fact that my wallet with my credit card in it was close to the RFID scanner. Not good.

So, how do you stop this from happening? Here’s what I did. I got a wallet that blocks RFID transmissions. ThinkGeek.com has the one that I am currently using. Since Canada is moving towards using RFID enabled passports, I also decided to be ahead of the curve and I got a RFID blocking passport billfold as well for myself and my wife. Speaking of my wife, she got a RFID blocking wallet as well from this site.

Seeing as there are criminals who want this information, it makes sense that you do all you can to protect yourself.

This entry was posted on April 25, 2013 at 7:17 am and is filed under Tips with tags fraud, Privacy, RFID. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.