The last good idea to come from Europe was nearly 400 years ago when a couple of million of their people got into ships and came to America. Since then, pretty much all ideas we have gotten from Europe - including this one - are stupid. The key is included in your sentence above:
“Chip and Pin”
You have to enter a four digit pin at the time you make a purchase. The RFID isn't any more secure than the magenetic stripe - in fact it is LESS secure. And that's the way it is designed to be. People can set up readers at a distance and gather data on exactly where you are going and when. These data will be used for the purposes of marketing and “fine tuning your shopping experience.”
If they made you enter a pin with a magnetic strip card, it would be just as secure. Other than one more way to keep track of people, chip encoded cards are just another way to follow another fools mistake.
Not so.
Magnetic strips are relatively easy to duplicate. RFID chips, not so much.
Not RFID, but Chip. My Chase card has that. Has to be physically inserted into the card reader at the bottom of the reader (most new ones have a slot for this at the bottom), cannot be read remotely, as it's not RFID.
It's exactly like what I have at work to log into my computer/network, in that I have to have something physical (the chip), and know something (the pin), in order for the card to work.
Shades of the old cameras positioned for market research to determine how men select razor blades.
Gillette has some explaining to do, says CASPIAN July 21, 2003
Pick up a Gillette product at the store, and you could be photographed and tracked without your knowledge or consent, says CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering). The consumer group is asking for a complete explanation from Gillette after finding evidence of a Gillette Mach3 retail store spy system.The evidence includes a slide presentation and video that demonstrate a "smart shelf" system fitted with radio frequency identification (RFID) devices. The shelf can sense when RFID tagged Gillette razor blade packages are removed from the shelf and, in response, take pictures of consumers handling them.
And yes, they will want to record how long consumer X is standing in this aisle or that one. Even Amazon likes to track what a consumer who bought product ABC also bought or looked at.
In support of what you are saying, and justifying the ‘paranoia’ ...
Due to my travels and role I have with the gummint as my customer, I have a US gummint-issued “Global Entry” card as well as other credentials that have an RFID chip in them.
They were issued to me *IN* a radio-opaque sleeve, with instructions to keep them there until needed for use.
This good advice comes from DHS and DoD.
While the RFID credit cards are arguably commercially secure, there is little point in enabling nearby readers to freely gain the info that is readily captured.
No need to ruin the chip when the sleeves and the RFID-proof wallet can be purchased at department and hi-tech stores.
http://www.walmart.com/c/kp/rfid-blocking-wallets
for example.