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Benetton Says No to RFIDs ... For Now
securitas writes "In a dramatic reversal of Benetton's previously announced plans to embed RFID tags in all of its clothing, the retailer has responded to customer privacy concerns and canceled its plans to go ahead with the project. Wired News and ComputerWorld also have stories on this stunning turn of events, which RFID manufacturer Philips is undoubtedly unhappy about. Benetton says it 'reserves the right' to use RFIDs in the future."
am I able to reserve the right to remove them? I want them to be a completely seperate color and I want them to be easily removed. If these two conditions aren't met, I am not going to buy them.
Why not let them put them in? If some company makes an "RFID Neutralizer" that blasts them with 3000 watts like in a hair dryer type of configuration, buy your clothes, take them home, spray them, you're done. This thing should be easy and cheap.
I for one can't say that I'm unhappy. I didn't like the idea of people being able to work out where I bought my clothes from by scanning me. Of course the RFID's might of been destroyed at the checkout. I mean if people really want to know they can ask me or look at the label.
With all these sort of things its a balance between privacy and eas of use. For food for example I can see why storing the Use-By date would be handy but for some things it just won't really work
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I dont think many geeks wear Benetton. All I wear is the t-shirts/jackets I get from expos. So until they start putting tracking devices in those freebies, I am not worried.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
The trick will be finding a way to accomplish those goals will maintaining the privacy of the customers. Perhaps some sort of decaying device that after it ages for a certain period it physically ceases to work.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
They should worry about thier fashions instead of inventory. Seriously, the last time I remember Benetton being popular in the US was those bright logo sweatshirts from the mid-80's were everyone would roll up the sleeves, right around the members-only jacket phenomenon. I guess they are still popular in the EU?
In response to customer requests, Benetton will be premiering their new "tin hat" range on the catwalks of New York, Paris and Milan.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
I thought that these RFID transmitters had
a range of 10-15 ft. Barring society installing
scanners every 15 feet, how is this a threat
to privacy? You probably have a better chance
of being tracked by using your debit card than
RFID technology.
Is there some capacity that they would not have, but for having stated a "reservation of right"?
And if it's really a right, they wouldn't need to reserve it, would they?
It sounds to me like a rhetorical device where the speaker tries to sucker the listener into believing that some course of action is a "right" (i.e., undeniable), no merely a planned course of action.
Benetton has said no to the publicity surrounding RFID tags.
So this particular implementation got onto the radar screens - do we think this will actually go away? Not in the slightest. All Phillips and everyone else has to do is make some quiet deals that don't directly impact consumers, maybe some business-to-business product, then find a way to make RFID tags "important to homeland security" and it's off to the races.
I have an idea for Philips, how about saying that RFID tags should be required on all products coming over the border from Mexico and into ports in the U.S. so that the Department of Homeland Security can better track them for suspicious shipment patterns? It would be a delicious use of both your lobbying power and the government's ability to shove intrusive technologies down our throats as long as they're slathered in a thick gravy of anti-terrorism.
Sorry to be Mr. Cynical on this, but we just watched Benetton take a principled stand on nothing excepting being an RFID guinea pig. I give them two years before they're back on board.
-----
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
Of course, I reserve the right to remove the tags after purchasing it (much like the alarm sensors put in CD/DVD cases nowadays), but while it's in the store, I wouldn't mind at all. The only groups I would have thought protesting this technology are the union workers doing inventory control now.
They'll just be imbedding them in customers.
Couldn't you design the RFID tags to disable themselves when the clothes are washed? Maybe have some kind of heat sensitive material that would disable the tag (or just melt) when it got hot enough, or wet enough.
I suppose "Dry Clean Only" presents a problem tho...
Just installed the tag reader and the linux box, so my washing machine would finally know automatically what soap and which program to run on my clothes..
It's perfectly possible to make a type of RFID tag that doesn't affect privacy in any meaningful way. If the tag wasn't a unique identifier, but more like a product code (like the UPC code), then the only information it leaks it that it's a particlar inventiroy item, say, a red sweater.
No one can trace it to you, since--like a UPC symbol--it's not unique to item, but to the kind of item. And they could msake a way to disable them after purchase (like they do the little magnetized thingies in bookstores).
The privacy loss in unique-id RFID tags has a technological solution. I wish some slashdotter with access to capital would make a better, privacy-preserving widget instead of just hearing all of the bitching that you don't want the gov't to know you shop at LL Bean.
I can't see what the hysterical whining is about.
Here is the link: http://www.rf-id.com to general tags site. Read all about them.
The tags are just that - tags, just like any other tag on your clothing. It is not as if unique id is "embedded" in the threads of your pants and cannot be removed. In fact, if you will continue wearning clothes with RFID tag still attached - you will look like an idiot. Much like keeping any other tags on clothes.
Incidentally, what is the issue with privacy, even if the tag was somehow magically embedded into the thread of your pants? The tag identifies your pants as being a olive-green khakees size 48L, specifically made in Malaysia by a 12 year old? What part of that is not public knowledge or painfully obvious? What part of that is divulging information about the wearer of such clothes that he/she is not already giving up simply by wearing them?
... look what happened to the counting sheep with
matress tags....
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
In the case of the Bennetton tags, there wasn't even any additional convenience for the customer; just a straightforward loss of privacy ("wow, she's back for the 3rd day, still wearing the same jeans!"). So I think that died because they couldn't come up with any "convenient" excuse for tagging your clothes.
My claim is that even in other cases, like FastLane style auto toll collection, there's no technical or engineering reason you have to give up privacy for the convenience. Instead, the designers and/or operators of the systems want the information, so they provide a benefit in order to justify collecting the information. In the case of auto toll collection, as pointed out in here, your toll debit card could be purchased anonymously. This has all the convenience and none of the privacy intrusion of existing systems.
But what's the big deal about privacy anyway? My claim is that when times are good, privacy doesn't matter. But when times are bad, it's too late! Innocent databases can be misused in terrible ways. When the Nazis conquered cities, they would use library borrowing records to find Jewish people. How long until the next J. Edgar Hoover or Joe McCarthy comes along and abuses his position of power? (Yeah, I know, some would say Ashcroft is already worse; I don't want to start that argument). My point is that it has happened here, and likely will again. The potential unforseen future misuse of databases is what makes me a privacy advocate.
So, good riddance to Bennetton's RFID tags, and let's get rid of the false dichotomy that's used to insinuate similar privacy invasions!
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
Inventory tracking
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
You don't need a database of tags and owners to track thieves. Suppose that these RFIDs are sold in ranges. Benetton purchase serial numbers 100000 through 20000. As items are sold the RFID is struck from the list and the RFID destroyed.
Now if an RFID appears in range there are two checks to determine if the item was stolen. First, the RFID existing at all is an indicator since it was supposed to be destroyed. Second, if the RFID appears in the database then according to policy the item is in fact stolen.
No individual was actually tracked, no purchasing information was stored and there is no way to match a given RFID to any customer.
I still don't like RFID, but there are ways to avoid privacy issues and make use of them. Even with this blind system you could end up falsely accused of theft. If the clerk doesn't correctly enter the tag in the database and doesn't disable the RFID chip then her laziness or mechanical failure could incorrectly single you out as a thief.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
The whole RFID debate seemed so familiar to me for a while, and I was pleased to finally put my finger on it recently. This is all so 1997.
Some of you might remember the huge debate over "magic cookies" (as we called them then) in the mid to late 90s. Around 1997, IIRC, it really built to a fevered pitch -- any self-respecting advocate (myself included) maintained that cookies would be the downfall of civilization, that they did nothing good, only evil, websites' reputation were based on whether or not they provided a Dreaded Cookie, etc., etc. Of course, we learned the cookies are useful, we developed tools to manage them, it became passe to protest them, and life went on.
Of course, RFID tags are just physical cookies. Much like with browsers, we will develop standards for how RFID tags should work, we will learn to manage them, and we will ultimately find that their benefits far outweigh their drawbacks.
-Waldo Jaquith
Why not just put the RFID in a sticker on the inside of the clothes that you can peel off, or put it in the tag?.. something you can just remove.. or a little "pop-off" thing like those dye-markers.. so they can just pop the thing off at the counter.
You get your manufacture-to-counter-to-sale tracking, and your customers can be anonymous (assuming you don't actually log the RFID-to-CCinfo.
meh
After seeing several companies at CeBit showing off tiny RFID tags, all of them promote the fact that they can't be destroyed by putting them in a microwave, or with other types of high energy RF systems. They have been designed to withstand most easy things thieves/consumers can do to disable them.
Only way to disable them is to locate them in the clothing, and tear them out. Those things are tiny, like smaller than a dried grain of rice, with tiny loops on the ends for threads to hold them in place.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on