Slashdot Mirror
RFID Tech Infiltrating a British Institution
An anonymous reader writes, "According to silicon.com, Marks & Spencer — a department store as quintessentially British as tea & cake — is so pleased with its trial of RFID clothes-tagging that it's planning to roll it out nationwide. Considering that the UK's Information Commissioner recently made a lot of noise around the RFID track and trace tech, warning that Britain is 'sleepwalking into a surveillance society', Marks & Sparks seems to be setting itself up as a tweed-clad Public Enemy Number One."
Given that the RFID tags are on disposable paper tags I don't see the problem. If you're too dumb to take off the label before you wear your new clothes you deserve all you get.
...FUD at it's finest. Seriously, this has nothing at all to do with the surveillance society that we all fear.
They're just using RFID to prevent shoplifting. Buy the item, take the tag off - beats the hell out of those giant plastic things you see now. Can someone explain to me how this is bad? I mean, for people who aren't shoplifing.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Britain is already there, the place is infested with video cameras.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Number One is a department store? That would explain where Number Two and Number Six got their suits.
"The RFID tags are contained in throwaway paper labels attached to, but not embedded in" the clothing.
Buy garment, remove RFID tag. Hopefully, it will be on one of the easily removed tags that you cut off anyway.
What is the name of the store? Marks & Spencer or Marks & Sparks? Slashdot surely has gone downhill if there are inconsistencies even in the summary!
What is the deal with the British and sleepwalking?
.... drive it around the store and watch security get confused as hell.
But just a couple hours ago, there was another article warning that
Perhaps someone should look into this sleepwalking. I'm sure there's some kind of treatment.
Following your advice would allow the Marks & Spencer satellite to pinpint the exact location of your rubbish bin! No thank you, Mr. Big Brother apologist.
...all my clothes are from M&S... all UK geek's clothes are from there, except our batman t-shirts - because M&S is where British people shop when they want to buy a pair of nice trousers without actually knowing anything about fashion...frightened to move... can my corduroy trousers see what I'm typing.....erk.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
It's for stock control and shoplifting prevention. They're not monitoring their customer's movements or anything in the slightest bit sinister.
Go and find something more useful to post, eh?
I say yes. Boycott M&S. Surveillance society, yeah. Disgusting. ;)
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
The only slippery slope I'm seeing is Slashdot's growing tendency for alarmist article summaries.
What in the heck are you talking about? They're trying to keep people from stealing stuff, and the tag comes off when you get it home. How is this "sleepwalking into a survellience society"? Not every use of RFID technology is Big Brother come to fruition.
Brett
Many others have commented on this already, but this announcement shouldn't be a problem, and for two reasons: The tags come off, and they are only monitoring what is being sold, not what is coming in the shop.
Because the tags are not embedded, it's not a lasting concern. Remove the tags, you are wearing any other garment. I fail to see the worry with this implementation.
And, because the monitoring is simply for automated stock taking, there is no ulterior motive. Anyone that has worked in the Retail business has either experienced stock taking, or has had to make the hard decision of which product to stock for potential buyers. For Brick and Mortar stores, it is essential to keep the overhead to a minimum. This allows the shop to do so with technology.
But the real question is, will this be the final step? How long will it be before someone does start embedding RFID tags into clothing? It would definitely make it easier to track clothing from the factory to the consumer. Clothing manufacturers may want to do that to find out which part of their global marketplace needs to be targeted the most. An innocent enough reason, and unless it's tied to a record of the purchase, it's still not tied to you.. yet. But then Social Security cards were initially just to track who was eligible for Social Security benefits, and not to track your credit history.
So while this is a great idea for stock taking, it's a good idea to decide where the line should be drawn, and make sure that line is not crossed.
and prevent shoplifting...
They are anti-theft tags. We've had those for years, you just remove them when you buy the thing.
The problem we have in Britain is with cameras, they are multiplying like a virus. One street in London
I am watching currently has 82 cameras (I counted them), when it reaches 100 I'm writing an article for the
newspaper. Some spots on the street are covered by up to 4 cameras. This is an ordinary public space.
I hope we become more like the French and people start going out with shotguns, rocks and paint to
vandalise and destroy these creepy nuicance devices which are proven not to reduce crime but lure
people into false security so that next time you get mugged or raped you merely get to have everyone see
it on YouTube.
Also they are a vast waste of taxpayers public money which is goung to line the pockets of these
so called "security companies". The money would be much better spent putting more police out on
the streets.
Marks & Spencer -- a department store as quintessentially British as tea & cake -- seems to be setting itself up as a tweed-clad Public Enemy Number One.
They clothe their businesses in the UK? That is weird.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
No, they aren't. Really. Go into a Marks & Spencer store, and ask customers at random if they are concerned about RFID, or even what it is.
About 90% of them will have never even heard of it, and a further 9.9% or so will know what it is but not care.
RFID technology used in inventory like this is all on the supply-side for inventory tracking and control. The tags are passive devices. You'd have to walk near an actual RFID reader for the tag to do anything. If M&S were to collaborate with the UK gov't and put an RFID reader in every intersection in the country, then I'd worry -- otherwise, not so much.
Furthermore, the only thing most current tags can "tell you" even if you are near a reader is "hey, my number is (insert string of numbers here)". At best, it would decode into "Shipment #229 out of distribution center #101 shipped on (date)." Nothing at all personal about the buyer. RFID tech is a long long way from making you want a tinfoil overcoat. I've worked in the industry; I know.
(I would at some times welcome a way of having an ID card - have you tried opening a bank account lately, with having to prove you are who you say you are, and you live where you say you live ? Waiting two weeks while they run $DEITY knows what checks on you ?)
Having to go through a criminal records check to get a job as an IT architect in London .. that doesn't bother me that much. However, when all this data starts to join up - now I start to get scared. Maybe I have been watching too many movies, but the prospect of data being joined together is far more scary - the whole being much, much greater than the sum of the parts. The technology exists - all it would take is a bit more 'anti-terror' legislation and a good ETL and ta-da!
Add to that a little identity theft, the possibility of others' criminal activity corrupting your data; your digital footprint being messed up with cross-references and data duplicates that shouldn't be there; laws that assume guilt instead of proving it; laws that can put you away for two years for forgetting a password; and bugger me, it is time to leave the country.
Marks & Sparks have been having such huge problems due to them not being trendy for a long time, it's all in a name and they have certainly made some progress. But from the millions M&S had years ago, they need less bad press and more reasons to shop there. Though their food is quite yummy.
As a part tme job to get me through uni I work in woolworths, I really like the idea of RFID tags for two reasons. Firstly the security tags stores use are a major pain, I can lose a lot of time when new shop workers either forget to remove them or diasble them. Some of the tags DO damage clothing, having the ability to simply put the tag in the barcode which you can rip off would be great, we'd stop damaging some items of stock, my time wouldn't be wasted and we would cut done of shop theft since not every item does get tagged even if its supposed to.
But my real reason? I work on the sweets department we have to do something called stock checking, the idea is to go through all your stock, checking the dates bringing the oldest to the front so our stock doesn't run out of date and become unsellable. One day I hope they put these things into sweets and crisps. Today I went through just over a thousand packets of crisps to make sure none were out of date and reordered the lot. If i could wave a scanner, see that the earliest date going was the 1st of Febuary I could have saved myself ALOT of time.
I know of several of people who work in stores who face similar issues when you talk about some of the benifits it would be extremly helpful. But then in my business module (yes the IET make you do them) it could see my lecturer practically salavating over the possible uses which does make me worry about the potential missuse of the technology.
These are handy for stock control.
The potential for abuse is a lot more abstract and hypothetical. They could work out that people are buying certain items together, but most superstores are already collecting that sort of information. These are largely anonymous so there's a complete lack of personal information. Exactly what they're spying on is a bit vague.
However, we do have some pretty competent privacy legislation in this country. If RFID tags do become a problem I'd imagine the legislation will be expanded.
... the parent is "insightful". I'd have thought "ignorant" was more to the point.
... maybe I won't bother, I've got to go to work in the morning so it'd better be bedtime.
There's just so much wrong with this analysis of CCTV in Britain that I don't know where to begin
I believe most are more worried about abuse. They may set it up as a anti theft device for now... but years from now some idiot decides to add nice features to it. Like um ask the patrons for their phone number as they scan the tags. Many stores do this now. They now know whom bought the item. That is if you was dumb enough to give a REAL phone number. Anyone know the phone number of the inventor of this RFID? *evil grin"
I guess Wendy won't be stealing clothes from Marks and Sparks anymore.
~S
Reduce, reuse, cycle
I attended a conference on RFID for my company, and M&S were one of the speakers. The only purpose of the RFID tags are to tell them at a glance how many of each item is still in stock so that they can restock shelves more quickly. Even if they wanted to track individuals, they couldn't - the tags are category level rather than item level. In fact, the only people at the entire conference doing item level tracking was Microsoft in their hardware products.
Jesus, nothing like a stereotype eh?
Anyway, im off to tear a strip off the butler before I pop in and visit
the Queen.
Chin chin,
M
The whole scam behind the ID card 'non-compulsiveness' is that it's about as non-compulsive as winter tyres in Switzerland after November (you don't "need" them until you have an accident and discover the insurance won't cough up). Now they've got this total waste of taxpayers funds (I can tell you about the scams behind the scenes as well but let's not digress) it'll be forced down our throat in the same manner as the major of London has made congestion charges seem acceptable: by making the alternative a misery.
The pretense is that the issue process of the ID Card is so safe that a bank would have to go through all similar checks to give you an account. The issue is that, in reality, you (a) do not need multi-layer checks to run a standard low value bank account and (b) your passport is already a pretty well controlled document (and those nations where that isn't the case can be excluded by the banks anyway).
So, any time you go and do something that needs SOME form of ID, without an ID Card you're now required to do the equivalent of a full body and cavity search. So yeah, it's not compulsory, they'll just make your life a misery without.
Not exactly a new trick..