Slashdot Mirror
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."
For a theme park, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. One of my least favorite things about theme parks is the potential to lose the rest of your party - resulting in much tedious wandering around. sure, you can call or SMS, but this seems like a genuinely good feature.
Can the park individually track where you are? probably, but it's their right to do so - you've voluntarily entered their private property after all, and paid for the privilege. Can they track your preferences within the park? probably.
will they store any personal identifiers? there's the rub. if their database links your RFID tag to the visa card number you paid with, THEN we're talking problems, and of course the article doesn't make it clear if this can happen or not...
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
Not bad of an idea. Maybe they'll have some pad you swipe your tag near and it'll show your party on the screen. Can you use it to buy stuff too? How about stealing someone else's tag and getting crap w/ it?
Nope... I didn't read the article.
I'd like to see posters in this discussion indicate if they have kids or not. I'm going to guess that those who post "not over my dead body/evil CIA tracking device/civil liberties being eroded by govt." are the single adults who've never lost a small child they are responsible for in a large, crowded public place.
..if you don't like the idea of being tagged and tracked - well, don't go to that park that tag and track you. Problem solved.
Off course, if the US goverment (or any other evil organisation/entity of your choice) started doing this, allowing you to be "found in real time", you might have a reason to scream up about "civil liberties" and whatnot.. but as long as it's private company doing it on their own property you have nothing to say in the matter - except to vote with your dollars and feet. Besides, I like the idea to find the kids when it's time to leave - spendt way to much time tracking down a kid that didn't want to be found because he didn't want to leave one time.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
No big deal. Seems to me, one can just remove it, unless it is required for the attractions. (Still can break the tags, I guess.)
Theme parks are all about control anyway. The better ones have good control which results in a good experience. (That is what you pay for.) The poor ones have not thought everything out resulting in problems. (Which is what you don't pay for.)
It's a good feature. Pay cash if you don't want your prefs tracked to your identity.
Blogging because I can...
I see nothing wrong with this use of RFID tags, as the users of it *want* it to be used for tracking. There's no reason this wouldn't be a 'good' thing if it were done with GPS instead of RFID.
The problem with RFID tags is that if a large number of the goods we buy have them, then it's easy for someone to put RFID readers out there so that when you pass them, they know what you are currently holding, which will likely lead to targetted advertising as you walk down the streets. I.e., if you are the type of person to buy expensive clothing, don't be suprised if you tend to get extra attention while shopping from the sales people.
If such readers are networked, they can be used as a way of tracking your position. This 'feature' will not for *you* to see where your friends and family are like in the example in the article, but for others.
This could lead to a cool modern day version of hide and seek. One person is the fugitive, gets hmmm 10 minutes to 'escape' then the others have to use the rfid to track the fugitive down.
Given that both the hunter and the hunted can see each others locations - but only when visiting the booths - then some interesting strategies could come out.
What would be really cool would be if you could tell the park you're doing this and they limit access to the location data to something like 1 minute access every 5 minutes to prevent 'booth squatting'!
Now I'd visit that park.
I suppose another thing that might be advantageous for all (not just parents) is that the park could take quite an abstract view of people's whereabouts in the park; just dots from a bird's eye view. That way they could watch crowd problems happening and take action to stop any dangerous crowd phenomena, or try to ease large queues by suggesting that people try one of the less busy attractions.
You've probably noticed that people's noses get bigger as they get older. That's because old people are huge liars.
I can also see them being very useful for the resort management to analyse patterns of movement on slopes. OK, a lot of it isn't rocket science, but I really hate resorts where all the runs descend into the beginners area - it just seems so unfair on those trying to learn (Are you listening Grand Serre Chevalier, hats off to Isolla, and some other smaller resorts which I don't want to mention because I don't want them full of slashdotters).
regards,
treefrog
Think!
what kind of data have would you have to give and with which information would it be connected?
who would decide which advertisment is the right one for you?
where would the information be stored and for how long?
who would be in control of all of this and what would his objectives be?
Since the tags they'll use probably wont contain all the information on you they can possibly gather, this probably isn't that big a deal. They're probably just matched to a group set up in the park database when you enter so you can find each other. Sure they can track you too and provide you with ads and garbage for when they get a new rollercoaster if thats where you spend all your time, but one would like to think that's not the use.
People spend too much time being paranoid of what RFID can be used for in all the wrong ways. If they don't go overboard this isn't a bad idea, because we all hear about the person who had their kid wander off. Imagine if you could just go to a park booth and say hi I'm so and so and my kid just wandered off, they could tell you where the kid was instantly.
Presently here, but not there.
Here's a few choice quotes from a chapter entitled "Capitals of Unreality"
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.
We wouldn't want them to be able to make the place better now would we!I know everyone hasn't already pointed out how silly your comment is but I can't resist... Any parent with adventurous children learns quickly that the trick is have lose enough control that your kids don"t have the perception of being under your control or observation so the quit trying (as the spy novels say) "lose their tail". But your have to be adept and quick enough to prevent them from committing any felonies or terrorist acts. On top of that I want my kids to have some independence so they do stupid childish Eight year old things, and learn not to rather than making it to being a teenager without these lessons and learning them when she has a peer group with motor vehicles.
And as someone else pointed out she is eight and she walks to school (with her younger bother) without supervision (school started last week) and apparently fun & cool (we do live in a very safe city in Austria).
My only real concern is that her brother will antagonize her until he finds himself tied to a freight train head for Timbuktu.
On the RFID thing... in a theme park the kids may think it fun but in the real world it's just an invasion of privacy and kids don't really have any to begin with, so I'd never foist that on any off them it only pushes them away.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.