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RFID Leaders Talk Privacy
An anonymous reader writes "RFID News has released a set of interviews with EPIC, VeriSign, CASPIAN, HP and EPCGlobal on RFID and privacy. From CASPIAN founder Katherine Albrecht: 'In most cases, asking how a company exploring item-level RFID tagging can protect their customers' privacy is like asking a fox how he can best ensure the safety of your chickens.'"
Check it out: RFID Blocker Tag
There are many more uses Wal-Mart (and others) are touting for RFID, such as improving returns, inventory control etc. I still hate it, but anti-theft is just the tip of the iceberg.
OK, so the new Library in Seattle uses RFID to keep track of their books, and uses an automatic sorting machine to deliver them to the correct location depending on their RFID. I see no harm in that. What next, the Patriot Act will allow the government access to the books you check out, heh.
1) They are only used on things that are cost effective to track (tags are expensive, about $.25 US to about $200).
2) Not all RFID tags are unique (the same signal could mean two different products).
3) All EPC tags should be unique.
4) RFID is an old technology that is still about 2 years away from being mature.
5) Some types of RFID (i.e. EPC) do not work well on metal or liquids.
6) It's not a matter of the fox ruling the hen house and we own the hens. The fox owns the hens and the hen house and sees this as the best way to manage her inventory. The fox doesn't care what happens to the hen once you buy it (returns excluded).
7) I've had failure rates reported to me of up to 30% with cheap tags out of the box, 10% in the field. This cuts down greatly on the cost effectiveness of the technology.
Disclaimer, I own a Data collection company
The problem with technologies like the RFID tags is that we really cannot regulate it until we know what "it" is. We have to have the list of abuses of the technology before regulators have a track record that they can act upon.
It seems to me that pre-emptive regulations generally do not acheive their goals. Often the regulations are influenced by the industry to be regulated. Generally, the regulations block a small firms from entering an industry and end up feeding the monopolies.
Preemptive regulation generally has the effect of rewarding those companies on the inside track of the regulations (the politically connected) whild disenfranchising those who do not have the political connections to the regulators. As such it is best to put off regulation until the industry has matured a little.
Preemptive regulations might be inspired by consumer fears. Lacking an actual history of abuses, the actual process of preemptive regulation tends to be controlled by the industry being regulated. As such, the regulation limits the number of players in a market and often comes up favorable to the companies being regulated.
For example, you might recall several years ago when the House of Representatives considered a spam regulation bill. Without being passed into law, spammers slapped the House Bill number on their ads because the regulation was giving them legitimacy.
Look at Internet porn. There was a great desire among legislators to find a way to block porn from kids. Without serious debates. The preemptive regulators listened to the porn dealers. The porn industry suggested that having a valid credit card number verified a person's age. Getting a credit card number is the first 90% of the battle to actually putting a charge on the credit card. While online news sources do not have a viable funding mechanism, the attempt to regulate an industry gave the porn industry the internet on a silver platter.
Trying to regulate RFID tags in their infancy is likely to simply give an market advantage to the politically connected companies that draft the legislation.
Unfortunately, since RFID tags are tags purchased by businesses for internal business use, the consumer really won't have that much choice about where and when they get used.