Dealing with the Darker Side
WHAT WILL BE the social consequences of a world full of embedded RFID tags and readers? Will our privacy be further eroded as RFID technology makes it possible for our movements to be tracked and allows our personal information to be available in unprecedented detail? These and many other questions must be answered before RFID systems become commonplace.
One of the major worries for privacy advocates is that RFID tags identifying individual items purchased with credit or debit cards would link buyers to the specific items in the card’s or the store’s databases. Marketers could then use these data to keep track of exactly what particular people bought, down to the color, size, style and price—more information than UPC bar codes reveal. In an amplification of the way that phone and direct-mail solicitors use similar, less accurate data to target people for sales pitches, those equipped with RFID-derived data might home in on consumers with very specific sales pitches.
Another concern is that RFID equipment will produce automatic audit trails of commercial transactions: in a totally tagged world, it will be easier to detect when we lie about how we spent our time or what we did and where. This capability could have great consequences for the workplace, and the legal system might look to using logs kept by tag readers as courtroom evidence. We may need laws to specify who can access data logs and for what purpose. In Europe, the Data Protection Act already limits access to computer records of this kind, and the U.S. will probably enact similar legislation.
We will also have to grapple with the inevitable displacement of workers by RFID systems. Opposition to tagging could well come from the industrial labor force, which stands to lose significant numbers of jobs as industry adopts RFID tools able to perform tasks that now depend on human effort. A bitter strike by longshoremen on the West Coast in 2002, partly over new technology that threatened future jobs, may have been a preview of conflicts to come over RFID systems.
Privacy Advocates Protest
The backlash against perceived invasions of consumer privacy by RFID applications began in March 2003, when Philips Semiconductor announced that it was shipping 15 million RFID tags to the clothing manufacturer and retailer Benetton to be incorporated into labels during production. The tags were to interact with a network of RFID readers in Benetton’s store shelves and warehouses to track inventory throughout the company’s 5,000 retail outlets worldwide.
Despite Philips’s reassurances that tagged clothing could not be tracked outside Benetton stores, some industry experts said that criminals could increase the Benetton tags’ tracking distance by creating more sensitive RFID readers. Privacy advocates worried that the tags could be scanned by RFID readers other than those in Benetton stores, which would allow people wearing the clothes to be monitored without their knowledge by, say, criminals or the government. Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, a U.S.- based privacy group, called for a worldwide boycott of Benetton until the company abandoned RFID tracking technology. Benetton quickly issued statements saying that although it had already tested RFID systems, it was not using RFID inventory tracking and had no firm plans to insert the millions of Philips tags into its products.
Similar concerns—that corporations might keep consumers’ products under surveillance in purchasers’ homes and on the streets—surfaced about a test of an in-store RFID inventory system that was planned by Wal-Mart and Gillette. To answer consumer concern, Gillette announced that it was embedding its RFID tags in packaging, not products, so purchasers would discard the tags with the packaging. But Declan McCullagh, a commentator who writes for computing publications and who favors RFID for its practical value, has written: “Future burglars could canvass alleys with RFID detectors, looking for RFID tags on discarded packaging that indicates expensive electronic gear is nearby.... [T]he ability to remain anonymous is eroded.”
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3 Comments
Add CommentI guess I am not understanding what the problem is...if you are not doing anything wrong, what's the concern? Shield the RFID that has personally identifiable material so it's not usable without our consent. How hard can it be? Remember how careful we have to be with the magnetic strips on credit cards?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike a previous post stated- if you don't want to be identified, better not have ANY kind of a telephone. No credit cards, no computers. No SS Number. If you are using electricity, then it's already too late. "They" know who you are, and if you are THAT paranoid, I feel very sorry for you. Move to Montana, live like a Mountain Man and enjoy your very uncomfortable life. I am not doing anything that would be of any interest to anyone, so why on earth would anyone want to know what I do, what I eat, etc. So what? Let "them". If they want to waste their time trying to sell stuff to me when I am strong enough to just say "no"?
I think it's silly to waste time on something so trivial, something that can do so much GOOD, and actually lower costs of goods?
Stay with me here...How about a time when you never have to wait at a check out line again? Sound like heaven? That's what RFID can do. You register once, give them a credit/debit card and your personal data is kept secure. RFID tags should be in every product you purchase and when you remove the sheath that is covering your RFID store card you simply exit the store it's all instantly tallied and paid for. I bet this would cut at least 30 minutes off a weekly shopping trip, not to mention the aggravation.
Lighten up people, it's not going to be that bad. Change is hard, but you will get over it.
Keep dreaming. If you discover that a human being is more than just a node on a network diagram to be shuffled and tracked by human network administrators with unlimited and unaccountable powers- who, by the way, will be the architects of your digital wanderings in a world surrendered in the name of petty convenience... Well then- chances are- you'll have your chip turned off. Life will be so convenient, automatic and 'super-awesome' for every other half-wit still plugged in, that no one will care to hear your thoughts contrary to what is prescribed for the digital herd to consume until its too late for any legitimate challenge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou would be a fool to deny the potential evil of a currency issued by the few that is tracked, controlled and manipulated from which the people are ignorant. We already have such a system, and it has built itself many industrial complexes which must be fed through perpetual wars, exploitation, incarceration, and the stagnation of intellectual development concerning individuals inside the system. You talk about a Social Security Number as if it is a matter of choice, but its not. Its an artificial womb created to transform the American household into an economic factory. And what you are advocating is its grand perfection.
Before you tell me that Im paranoid and fearful of shadows. I will tell you that I have no fear of these misanthropic men devoid of humanity; and I know what I am talking about.
The reason that I have left you a reply in such a tone is that& This is not a joke, and this isnt to be taken lightly.
You don't get to tell ME or ANYONE ELSE to go live in the mountains simply because we dont want to get chipped, so that YOU can to chop off 30 minutes of the ridiculously stupid American consumption/shopping adventure. This country was founded by great men, with greater ideals for humanity. We can turn this nonsense around if people begin to take responsibility for themselves. But you, Miss, are grossly deluded when you praise your strength to say No , which is actually a freedom given to you by those aforementioned great men with a vision& All while wishing it away the next.
We started checking out the RFID options for the small manufacturing company where I work, but in the end decided to go with a simpler <a href="http://www.kzsoftware.com/products/asset-management-software/">Fixed Asset Register system</a>. I hope we see the day when this can be integrated with RFID, but for now, this simple system works well for us.
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