A universal personal emergency medical information retrieval system, wherein information is written onto an RFID tag that is affixed to a carrier element, such as the back of the user's driver's license, passport, national identity card, school identification card, other form of identification, or cell phone. Medical personnel are alerted to the presence of the RFID tag by a universally accepted system identifier affixed to the carrier element, by scanning the patient with a handheld scanner, or by an RFID scanning portal. The emergency medical personnel can then download the user's information and identification photo using an RFID scanner. This information can then be used appropriately for proper emergency diagnosis and treatment. The RFID scanner can also be connected to a computer or computer network to retrieve additional information from a central database or to further disseminate the information contained on the RFID tag.