Gillette Pulls RFID Tags In UK Amid Protests

akb writes "Indymedia UK is reporting that after protests against the trial of RFID tags by Gillette at a Tesco store in Cambridge, increasing press coverage, a boycott, and the growing mobilisation of campaigners against the intrusive use of the technology, Gillette have withdrawn their trial. RFID (Radio Frequency ID) tags are small tags containing a microchip which can be 'read' by radio sensors over short distances (for background see SchNEWS Feature / 2 part Guardian Article)."

Comments

Are there any good uses?

[dj_whitebread]

We keep hearing about the bad uses for RFID technology, but do people know of any good uses that don't invade on our privacy?

Re:Are there any good uses?

[cliffy2000]

When used correctly, and in the right hands (if such a thing exists), it's a relatively non-intrusive technology. Yeah, it's a moderate violation of civil liberties -- but there's always freedom of choice. And honestly, having RFID tags is less invasive than a bag checker at the door, don't you think?

Re:Are there any good uses?

[sonicattack]

Well, at least in Sweden, some libraries use this to allow complete self-service.

To borrow some books, I simply enter my library card into a terminal, enter a PIN, and scan the barcodes on the back of the books. When I walk out, receivers (similar to anti-theft thingies in use in stores) at the exit notice that the books leaving the premises (and now in my bag) have been correctly checked-out. Of course, if I should forget to properly check out the books, helpful personnel at the service desk would be automatically notified when I try to leave.

Now that's what I call a good use of the technology!

Re:Are there any good uses?

[Pig Hogger]

As annoying as the bag checker is, (think Fry's) he doesn't come home with me.

Whenever I'm ask to check my bag, I make a big, loud fuss (to make sure other customers hear it well) about "so you assume that all your customers are going to steal from you? Then, I can assume that you're going to screw me. And if you don't trust me with my bag in your store, why would I entrust you with my bag??? Congrats, you just lost a suctomer". Then, of course, I walk-out. Just did it yesterday again. And, a month ago, a store I've been patronizing for 20 years stopped doing it after I did my little stunt.

It can be pretty effective; here, we have many street festivals where the organizers search bags to make sure that we don't bring our food/beer in order to sell us their overpriced shit. But there are often stores that sell the same thing in the festival area.
Well, last year, I managed to slip past security with my knapsack - I was heading to a convenience store to buy some water and snacks for a bus trip (the bus terminal is nearby) - and one of the goons started running after me and caught up with me when I entered the store and demanded that I show him my bag.
Of course, I told him to screw himself. He then summonned at least 10 other goons by radio and they ganged up on me, demanding to inspect my bag. I loudly refused, with lots of obscene profanity as I did my shoping (and taking my sweet fucking time). When I finally lined up (there was at least 15 people in line), they demanded that I pass in front of the line.
- No way, you fucking assholes, I'm gonna wait for my turn. So I waited 5 minutes with the 10 goons staring at me (and me having snide remarks once in a while). Then it was my turn, I paid for my stuff (water, a sandwich, a bag of chips and a chocolate bar) then left, and was escorted by the goon squad to the festival entrance.

Tis year, the same festival had the fence arranged so to let people access the convenience store without entering the festival site... No doubt my little shouting match had produced some results!!!

Loudly protesting can be effective!

Disposable plastic circuits are coming..

[glassesmonkey]

Conductive ink on bendable material including printable, disposable antennas seem to be right around the corner. Here's a pdf from Rochester with all the chemistry that goes into making the substrates. And an article from Business 2.0 on Plastic transistors (Google cache) and how they will change UPS tracking and WalMart's forever.

The most interesting aspect for me is that these sensors (or even on-chip flash) will be powered and read in the presence of an RF field, like how most RFID tags work. We might one day have tons of passive sensors 'waiting' to be read with an active energy source.

camera

[shakeittotheright]

the issue with this trial though was the fact it was linked to a CCTV camera which took pictures of your face when you picked up some razors, and then compared the image with your face at the checkout. that's taking things too far too soon surely? if they introduced the tags for stock-taking and basic security first, and then introduced cctv use later on etc, perhaps people would be more willing.

I can think of one - access control

[Motherfucking Shit]

I work for a contractor of FedEx. FedEx owns or rents hundreds of buildings around town, and all of them are protected in some manner or another. Most of the properties are linked up via an electronic access control system which makes use of RFID-enabled cards. The cards are called "proximity cards," or "proxy cards" for short.

The system consists of two components, a proxy card and a card reader. The readers are mounted at the doors of many FedEx buildings, and the proxy card itself is worn or held by employees. Each employee has a unique proxy card. The cards are manufactured by a GE subsidiary, Casi-Rusco.

It's an amazing system. When you walk near the door of a FedEx building, you simply wave your proxy card near (..within the "proximity" of..) the reader. The reader, which emits a signal, activates the RFID chip within your proxy card, and your card sends back its unique ID which in turn is tied to your employee/vendor code. Instantly - within a fraction of a second - the database is checked to determine whether or not you're allowed to open that door. If so, the door unlocks momentarily; if not, it remains locked.

As much as I hate "consumer-grade" RFID, it really is incredibly powerful (and, I imagine, rather convenient) in terms of access control.

Very Interesting....

[TygerFish]

It's interesting to see people in England rejecting these things so quickly and so thoroughly. It leaves one to wonder how we will react to them if they are given a trial in the United States.

After all, part of the mythos of our national character is that we are rugged individualists who only want to be left alone, but we regularly put up with the knowlege that various private and government agencies develop and deploy some of the most sophisticated intrusive security technologies in the world (e.g., public security cameras, biometrics, face recognition, gait recognition, cellular phone location, productivity logging etc, etc, ad nauseum...) and with that often in the pursuit of genuinely base motives.

This raises a question: 'Which of our faces will we in the U.S. turn towards a technology that, for a brief interval at least, simply does away with the privacy inherent in the inability of anyone anywhere to know precisely where you are?'

In one of the messages above, someone asked if there were any good uses for the technology and I think I can see the technology revolutionizing point-of-sale technologies for credit/debit card use; possibly reproducing the scenario in the speculative IBM commercial where someone shops in a supermarket by stuffing items in his coat and walking out of the place, only to be stopped by a security guard who reminds him to take the receipt for his purchases.

Basically, if a system knows you are carrying x items of y value that belong to the store until you walk them past a point where their cost is deducted from your account, you can eliminate cashiers. Of course, what those girls who operate supermarket cash registers do with themselves after you do is anyone's guess.

One more interesting thing is that these are electronic devices that have to send a signal in order to function: they have *got* be vulnerable to something.

Perhaps part of your transaction in your point-of-sale system of the future could be frying the tags one the items to mark them as sold which would also take care of the paranoia problem.

Before anyone mentions it: buying, selling or possessing any of the Russian or Taiwanese tag-zappers that would soon hit the market would be punishable by fine, imprisonment or both.

Have a good one...

Over-the-top

[AlecC]

This protest seems to me rather over the top, tinfoil helmet to me.

Of course, if nobody does anything, RFIDs could be used to infring liberty.

But what ills are not overcome by requiring that RFIDs should be clearly marked, and removable without damaging the goods to which they are attached. On items with packaging, such as the razors, they should be in the packaging. On items without packaging such as clothes, attache them with thos little plastic tags they already use for prices and useless information about the manufacturer.

To police it, ensure that an inexpensive scanner is available which allows a domestic user to detect any RFIDs thay have not removed. The fine on the company in the event of infringing the above rules (i.e. putting hidden RFIDs im) to include an element of reward to the finder of the hidden ID of at least the cost of such a scanner.

If you then remove all IDs when you get home - no more onerous than unpacking and removing those tags, then the only time the shop knows about them is as you leave for the first time. If you paid for them, they know that from the checkout. If you didn't, then presumably you are stealing them and deserve what happens to you.

This doesn't require wholesale observance to make it destroy the effective use to infringe privacy impossible. If more people than not remove the RFIDs (as they would) the residual information becomes effectively useless.

Of course, the CIA could always attach an RFID to your backside and track you wherever - but no law or consumer protest is going to stop that.

If it works, it could allow shops to cut losses by (say) 5%. If the marketplace works, this should cut end user prices by (say) 4.95%. Which may not sound be much, but if I got a 5% pay rise today (which is the same thing), I would go home happy.