RFID Not Just for Kids

dritan writes "News.com is reporting that a theme park in Florida is tagging all members of your group when you enter. The park has kiosks throughout the park that let you find the other members of your group in "real time." The park's web site makes it seem that you will only be able to find members of your group, instead of seeing everyone in the park. Slashdot has previously reported about tagging kids with RFID in order to keep track of them."

Comments

And now, for your delectation and delight...

[gowen]

... slashdotters will spot the magic phrase "RFID", and remember that this is something the hivemind has told them they're against. They will proceed to explain why a private entity using RFID tags -- entirely on its own property -- to track and locate lost children is an appalling infringement of their civil liberties.

This should be good.

Re:And now, for your delectation and delight...

[DrXym]

Lost children is a convenient explanation. I'm sure the park can't actually use the technology to see which bits of the park are most popular, where the best place to put concessions, what ride lengths need shortening to maximize throughput or anything like that. Oh no.

It's to track kids - never mind that it tracks everyone whether they have kids in tow or not.

But if it finds a few lost kids then great. Who can disagree with that? Unless of course it might substantially lessen a child's safety.

Why? Well the parents will be more inclined to leave a tagged child on his / her own because he / she can be tracked. As a consequence there are more separated children within the park. Even an unsophisticated abducter could just grab a random lone child and make a beeline for the exit - once out the park the RFID is no good. A smarter abductor would remove the RFID tag first. A smarter one yet might use the RFID to find out the where the parents were in order to avoid them before discarding it.

In other words, it's hard to see how an RFID helps that much at all. It will help in your everyday lost child situation, but it instills a false sense of security at the same time.

Perhaps it is better that kids are chaperoned by their parents rather than tracked by chips after all.

Re:And now, for your delectation and delight...

[Coryoth]

I use to work in data mining software for casinos. The only thing they'd love more than RFID tagging everyone that walks in the door is being able to get personal data (age, sex, address, income...) logged against each tag. If casinos can find an ecuse to do this, believe they will. They already track people in every possible way they can, and have a myriad of tools to slice and dice that data to squeeze every last penny out.

Which means it is no surprise at all to me that the theme park is largely using this for data collection purposes to optimise layouts and rides. As you say "finding lost children" is just the convenient limp excuse to get the system in place. After a while people will just take it for granted.

At the same time - there's really nothing at all wrong with this. In a sense they're just trying to provide the best service possible, and it's their property, so really they can do what they like. You dont want to be RFIDd and tracked? Don't go to that theme park. Nobody is forcing you to go there.

Jedidiah.

and..

[Turn-X Alphonse]

link you to any vandalism or trouble making.

They can pin point your location so lets say a little boy and a "older man" magicly end up in the same toilet cubicle..... well then :)

Could be very useful for this kinda thing

Theme parks freak me out..

[k98sven]

Am I the only one who is gets a bit freaked out by theme parks?

Sure, there is this nice image of happiness and friendliness.. but it's also obviously fake and false. (Even as a 7-year old at disneyland, I felt it)

At the same time, there are guards and surveillance cameras everywhere, not to mention the rigorous safety measures.

It's like being inside a Soviet propaganda movie or something.

And that was before they started tagging people. I can't say I'm surprized.

get it right

[simonharvey]

this is about tagging kids in theme parks so their friends can see if they are there, it is nothing to do with peoples rights being violated online.

move on, nothing to see here

Seems OK

[neilmoore67]

OK, I not a die-hard libertarian, but this seems like a good idea. This is not the same as tracking someone's movements all the time, as a theme park is ostensibly not the real world. It should stop kids from being getting lost; and it would save school and youth organisation groups from having to hammer around in those big chain gangs with flags, etc.

Re:Seems OK

[dave1791]

As most RFID tags in use are the el-cheapo "just respond with a serial number" type, I would be hard pressed to find a way that it would be terribly useful to a third party. At the moment, there is not even a standard ID system for RFID tags, but lets assume that there is for a moment; e.g. one similar to EAN. So you walk into a store and the scanner at the door reads SN#s 123456789, 987654321, blah, blah. Great! The store's CRM system is going to love this.

Now how do they correlate that with product information? Or, where do they get the "master data" (name, maker, stats, etc - catalog info) for that product? If it is something in their database already (e.g. a product that they sell), then they might be able to do a match against it. Otherwise, you have some anonymous product in your possession. Oh yeah, and do this all in realtime.

Now assuming they managed to score all that info from someplace. What will they do with it? Most stories about what CRM can do, such as men buying beer between 5 and 6 PM tend to correlate with men buying diapers in the same time frame; hence the store put diapers and beer together and profits went up, are just that; stories. In fact, they don't put the wealth of information they already get from customer cards to very sophisticated use.

Now if I could put a custom RFID tag on my keys and shoes, I could figure out where I put my keys and wallet what my kids did with my left shoe.

Re:Seems OK

[TiggsPanther]

This is one of those thigns I'm in two minds about. On the one hand being a private person and somewhat paranoid about quite how much information people can get/keep I have to admit being rather worried about something like this being abused.

However I've been a youth leader on a trip to a theme park this summer, trying to round up the final stragglers about half an hour after the deadline to get back to the coach.
And when we finally found them? They were queueing up for food - which in turn they'd have to finish before being allowed back on the coach. (Terms of hiring)
There was also the point on the same trip where all of the leaders were on the lookout for the trip organiser. Half an hour of searching and I bumped into him by accident by the front gates.

So yeah. On the one hand I don't like the idea of people being able to track me, and i am concerned about the security of such a system making sure that only party members could find people - not stalkers and the like.
But on the other hand I've recently been in a position of being unable to track down party members at such a place. And if you've booked a coach for a certain time you have to be able to round everybody up by a set time.

Tiggs

Is it voluntary?

[usefool]

Slashdot says the park is tagging everybody, but the article says it's issuing tags to everyone. So is the park really 'tagging' everyone as they enter? Like what happens to cows?

Anyway, unless it's mandatory, it should be okay. It's pretty close to being watched by CC cameras when you wonder around a department store.

Re:Is it voluntary?

[Atrax]

yeah, but (as I've noted in an earlier reply) what if the tag ID is linked to the visa account you paid with.

Let's say you go into the park, pay by credit card, wander round a bit and the system tracks you and your activities. Now if the company in question (lets say Disney) can link the ID to your CC number, and if they retain the data, then they'll be able to tightly market to you later based on what you did at the park.

Hung around a lot in the little kids park? you likely have small children, so we can market kids stuff to you. Sit in the bar all day while the rest of the party wandered round in bliss? well, there's stuff we can market there too.... that's my only worry.

Re:Is it voluntary?

[Atrax]

That's one argument I've heard advanced a lot, but I don't think it's necessarily a valid one. tighter targeting like that just increases the cost/benefit ratio of running a given campaign, right? More bang for their buck?

So it's cheaper, right? and what happens when the price goes down?

Demand (and volume) go up.

So the marketing may be more relevant, but there'd be a load more of it. The savings certainly wouldn't go to anything as crass as lowering the price of the product or (god forbid) improving it - that's not what marketing is for.

at least, that's one theory

RFID responsible use

[Xerxes2695]

RFID is IMO not inherently "evil". It is a tool, like a screwdriver. Now, a screwdriver can be used to turn screws, or it can be plunged into someone's head. RFID is fine with me, as long as:

1. I know it's being used
2. I'm not required to use it
3. I can turn it off

This sounds like an exciting new tool!

[Ghostgate]

• ... for stalkers.

in the workplace

[fishmonkey]

I wonder when workplaces will start using rfid in security badges to monitor start and finish times, lunch breaks, toilet breaks etc..

Re:in the workplace

[WegianWarrior]

Son't you mean "when workplaces did start using RFID..."?
Some places have already done so in Europe - to make sure the empolyees don't "forget" to punch out when they leave for lunch, or even worse (at least from the employees point of view) forget to punch back in when they return.

Raises questions? Sure it does - how can you be sure they don't monitor restbreaks and whatnot as well. Makes life simpler? Sure it does - as long as you remember your card.

Ski passes

[tree_frog]

Most of these have RFI tags in them. Seems like a good idea to me, for fairly ovious reasons.

Regards,

treefrog

looking for kids...

[zxflash]

as long as the technology can't be used by pervs to find kids that are alone... the technology is more of a threat than an aide for groups if it isn't implemented properly...

finding loopholes in this type of system isn't something that you can afford to do after it's been widely put into use.

Re:sigh...

[CountBrass]

You allow your 8 year old to wander off by herself? FFS what kind of a parent are you?

Not as bad.....

[BobSutan]

With the right controls, I'd welcome this. Whenever my family and friends head to Cedar Point, we always take 2-way radios to keep in touch (emergencies, when its time to eat, etc). They really help out though when you can't find someone at 4 PM where we're all supposed to be meeting for dinner. Well, with these little kiosks, we can leave the radios at home and have one less thing to worry about losing on a ride. Just pop onto a kiosk and see where they're at. Most likly they're STILL in line for (insert newest ride here) and that they're not going anywhere any time soon.