The noise has been agitating conspiratorial circles for several weeks: chips are said to be inserted in certain protective masks against Covid 19. A crazy invention? A baseless delirium? No, because let's be clear: yes, some models are well equipped with chips! Only, they do not have the power to spy on you… Promoted by certain manufacturers - it is far from being a generalized practice - this technology is actually used to know… the number of washes carried out on reusable masks.
Friday morning, an auditor of France Inter, self-proclaimed "conspirator", wanted to be clear. “Do you find it normal that some manufacturers offer masks with embedded RFID chips? I looked on the Internet at the number of manufacturers with chips, it is impressive. There are even videos circulating, of people peeling their masks. What is the point of these chips? ", He launched to Jérôme Salomon, Director General of Health, guest of the morning.
A chip known in mass distribution
“I can tell you that French fabric masks are excellent, I wear them every day and they have a much better impact on our environment, we can wash them, reuse them. They are made in France, near your home and do not have an integrated chip, I can guarantee that ”, he avoided. An answer not really calibrated to calm concerns when the reality is however very simple.
Since the start of the crisis, a French company has been marketing many masks for professionals equipped with an RFID chip. The latter is known to have "revolutionized" the industry. Affixed on credit cards or on clothing through a label, it is directly linked to an antenna.
Once activated, “it then transmits its identification data through its antenna […]. The information is then retrieved and processed in the corresponding database: name, price, stock, validity ”, explains the CNRS. Above all, with an RFID chip, you no longer need the good old barcode. It makes it possible to "scan a hundred labels at a time, even in the presence of obstacles, and up to ten meters away", continues the CNRS. This is how Decathlon now, all you have to do is put your belongings in a bin for them to be identified by the machine.
"It is the mask which is drawn and not the user"
What is the use of such technology on a mask against Covid? The company UBI Solutions has integrated RFID chips as well as a flashcode so that the user can "control the number of washes with a smartphone application", we can read on their site. And so not to exceed the limit for which they are certified. The company, which targets professionals, had already developed this system for hospital bed sheets.
Except that it did not take less to worry the followers of the conspiracy theory, who accuse this chip of tracing the population. "The issue of this technology is not to trace the actions of individuals or to attain their freedoms," assures Ouest-France Fabrice Zehra, president of UBI solutions, European leader in the field. It is the mask which is drawn and not the user. There is no link between the identity of the mask wearer and the mask. "
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The theories around this chip were not born with the crisis. "It is especially the subcutaneous chips, not so much those which are in objects which are regularly at the heart of these theories", recalls Rudy Reichstadt, founder of Conspiracy Watch. “There is the fantasy of controlling and chipping the population, to control us, to trace us, to geolocate us, or also to initiate a phase of transhumanism. Even, in some, to poison us. These chips would be used to inject us with poison that would alter our intellectual faculties. There are all kinds of delusions behind these chips, ”notes Rudy Reichstadt.