Overview
Wireless identity theft is a relatively new technique of gathering an individual's personal information from RF-enabled cards carried on a person in their access control, credit, debit, or government issued identification cards. Each of these cards carry a Radio frequency identification chip which responds to certain radio frequencies. When these "tags" come into contact with radio waves, they respond with a slightly altered signal. The response can contain encoded personal identifying information, including the card holder's name, address, Social Security Number, phone number, and pertinent account or employee information.
Upon capturing (or 'harvesting') this data, thieves are then able to program their own cards to respond in an identical fashion (via 'cloning'). Many sites are dedicated to nothing but teaching people how to perform this act, as well as supplying the necessary equipment and software.
The financial industrial complex is currently migrating from the use of magnetic stripes on debit and credit cards which technically require a swipe through a magnetic card swipe reader. These transactions take approximately 48 seconds, whereas the newer radio frequency tagged card transactions require approximately 12 seconds. The number of transactions per minute can be increased, and more transactions can be processed in a shorter time, therefore making for arguably shorter lines at the cashier.
Read more about this topic: Wireless Identity Theft