Nokia Adding RFID To Phones In The UK

In a trial with O2, London Underground, and Nokia, they are offering up a few phones with built in RFID tags to be used with payment systems. Its not a new idea, it was just decided a while ago that it was a rather bad one.

So what makes Nokia think they can do something different enough to make it work better? Personally I don't think they can, I am all about making the contents of my pocket fewer and fewer and simplifying the payment process, but I am also totally against RFID except for the tracking of cargo, items in a business, applications where tracking people, and attaching the tech to money are not combined because I've read about the extreme lack of security regarding RFID.

Clearly Nokia thinks they are above this, and at least the three have been smart enough to not directly attach the RFID tag to a bank account, but instead its more like a rechargeable gift card, so you likely won't have much money to lose through this program, but any money lost is more than I want to lose. I guess they figured that it works so well in Japan and South Korea, why not in the UK, and they have a good point, but you'll never catch me carrying around a phone with an RFID tag in it, at least not until they secure the technology more.

New Nokia's just the ticket [via T3]