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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
RFID is great and all, but until there is legislation preventing law enforcment from using/viewing the data collected by these companies, I wouldn't go for it.
Buying products with these tags seems like asking to be tracked. I know there are benefits to using them, but I'd rather not volunteer a public record of everything I do while carrying these products. It contradicts the spirit of the privacy rights granted in the constitution.
OK, so you don't want to get fucked over by the 'evil' (I don't believe a technology can be evil btw, only its uses) that is RFID in the hands of corporates. Simple solution; don't steal stuff from Walmart. If you don't steal items with rfid on them, you won't get hassled. It's an anti-theft device, it's not like they're implanting them in your foreheads.
"I had to eat the chickens to protect them"
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Once firmly implanted beneath the scalp, behind the nape of the neck and/or in the palm of the hand, the RFID chip(s) will enable law enforcement agencies to instantly know your location without the need to task satellites or get involved in wasteful car surveillance. They'll no longer need to burst in to make sure you're in the hotel room with your mistress. They'll know you're in there with her. And since they'll instantly know your exact location, they can be much more respectful of your belongings when they break in (with a court order, of course) and rummage through your stuff. They'll know exactly how long they have so they'll be careful.
Now if they just legally abolish these cumbersome doors (that terrorists so often hide behind while plotting their evil deeds), why I'll be glad to have traded any semblance of liberty for perfect security.
Thank you, Big Brother.
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.
wow a "tinfoil hat" that I can keep in my pocket. Actually a Tinfoil Forcefield!
Ahhh, RFID. The latest topic that gets some slashdotters panties all in a bunch.
But with RFID at least the store will instantly know what kind of panties they are so you can reorder them.
Tired of buying gifts your wife hates? Unsure exactly what size she wears? RFID is the answer! Put a detector by the door, collect a couple weeks of data, and voila, you have a list of her favorite clothes! Then you can go buy similar items and she'll think you're wonderful and so intuitive about her tastes!
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
their primary purpose is not anti-theft, but is inventory tracking and statistical analysis. The RFID tags are there when you BUY the stuff, and can (and will) be used to track you and the items you've purchased after you consider your interaction with the store to be done.
Its just like the supermarkets with their "discount cards". Which to get one you must give your ph#/name/address etc... (of course you can give bogus information). But now the supermarkets start tracking exactly what you buy and when you buy it....
If I buy a 5lb bag of bran.. should I get a call from the exlax salesman?
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.