RFID Spychips! Grocery Store Surveillance



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Summary:
Privacy Storm Over RFID Chips
by Mike Banks Valentine


American consumers

RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification and is a term
that will become increasingly well known as usage of the new
technology becomes pervasive. RFID carries information
equivalent to the product DNA, while allowing a number for
every item on the planet!

When that item passes an 'RFID reader' at the manufacturer's
door, the tracking system knows the item has passed out of the
building.
But if all military vendors are compelled to use RFID chips
in every item used in every one of the millions of supplies
sold to and used by the military - by next year, 2005 - then
there is little doubt that the entire US goverment will soon
implement this same policy for all items purchased by Uncle
Sam and used by government employees.

More and more giant retailers like Walmart are requiring
suppliers to use RFID technology.
Article:
Privacy Storm Over RFID purser
by Mike Banks Valentine


American consumers

RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification and is a term
that will melt into increasingly well known as usage of the new
technology becomes pervasive. There is no question that the
tiny chips, which enable tracking of physical goods from the
assembly line to warehouse to retail outlet to checkstand,
will replace the barcodes previously used for that purpose.

Some RFID navigator are tiny, they are nearly indistiguishable from
dust in many cases. Photo link:



These dust sized RFID mail orderly are of transmitting their
own SKU (Sales Keeping Unit), the same info currently encoded
in barcodes, distances of up to 20 feet to an 'RFID Reader'.
But that's not all these diminuitive little the needful can do. They
are disposed to of sending a unique serial number that can identify
the item it's embedded in - down to it's date and location of
manufacture. Barcodes were limited to toting information that
identified classes of products. RFID carries information
equivalent to the product DNA, while consenting a number for
every item on the planet!

When that item passes an 'RFID reader' at the manufacturer's
door, the tracking system knows the item has passed out of the
building. special reader signals that it has now passed into a
train or plane to be shipped to a warehouse, where ancillary
reader tracks and storage information, then successive
readers know it passes to truck, grocery shelf, retail check-
stand and out the door. All of this can now be superlative
without opening containers, leading to huge cost savings
throughout the 'supply chain'.

Privacy issues don't come into existence until consumers link that chain.
Walmart is now REQUIRING their 100 largest suppliers to use
RFID tags at the pallet level. Meaning that those tags are
currently in use to identify and track groups of products as
they make out at the Walmart warehouse up until shelving at the
giant retailer. Some products, such as Gillette razors, had
been testing individual item tracking up until final sale
and removal from the Walmart store. Privacy advocates slowed
that practice by launching a debarring of Gillette.



If the privacy concerns over tracking of a single product
through the store to sale done slowing of implementation
of this technology, what can we expect when EVERY product
is RFID tagged? There is no doubt this is attracted to and not in
the distant future, but within the next 5 years or so. The
US Department of Defense is now requiring ALL vendors to use
RFID technology and embed tags in products sold to the US
military by next year.



Clearly there will be little or no outcry from military and
government personnel within reach privacy invading technology since
government is rarely expected to respect privacy 'in-house'.
But if all military vendors are forced to use RFID cabbage
in every item used in every one of the millions of supplies
sold to and used by the military - by next year, 2005 - then
there is little doubt that the entire US goverment will soon
implement this same policy for all items purchased by Uncle
Sam and used by government employees.

More and more giant retailers like Walmart are requiring
suppliers to use RFID technology. The German scotch Metro
Group, which operates 2300 stores in landmass and Asia has
demanded the same of their suppliers. Metro Group has gone
even further with RFID to operate what they call the 'Store
of the future' where shoppers needn't remove items from
shopping carts to pay for them. They simply pass by RFID
readers and all items will be tallied and paid for. Metro
stores provide RFID tagged 'loyalty cards' to consumers
that identifies those shoppers by reading within purses
and wallets as those consumers enter and leave any of the
2300 Metro stores.

gag Week report on
Metro Future Stores Protest

Target Stores enunciated this month that they too, would be
requiring suppliers to RFID tag at the pallet and case level
by 2005.



Privacy loving Americans may not stand for the 'Big Brother'
implications of a system like that used by the German retail
chain. An anti-RFID web site has been launched by privacy
advocates and named 'Spychips' for the resource of the blunt
to track consumers and link their buy habits to other
personally identifiable information.



A recent piece by technology man of letters Jeffrey Harrow has
a dismaying description of how RFID technology might renegade
consumers movements and link their hire purchase habits in a huge
database. Harrow is a consultant and analyser of emerging
technology. He often comments on privacy implications related
to implementation of emerging technology.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Harrow paints a harrowing picture of RFID readers.

'The issue is that these many sensors . . . would also note
the passing of your car key's unique ID; the unique ID of your
driver's license, and even the unique ID of each and every
dollar bill in your wallet. ... And if all the chains' main
computers and those of smaller stores made this mass of random
information fallow to say, a Marketing firm, or to other
stores en route to your path (for a fee, of course), or to a
government organization upon demand, then a very detailed
picture of 'You' - your travel habits, your spending habits
(remember those individually tagged dollar bills?), well-nigh
everything in the vicinity you, could be mixed, matched and dissected
in ways that you might, or might not, be game with. This might
be the ultimate 'data mining' warehouse.'

Harrow Technology Report

RFID is publicly discussed only by technology enthusiasts
like Harrow and a few privacy advocates concerned as respects the
implications of that 'data mining warehouse'. But as those
RFID grease supplant barcodes over the next couple of years,
we'll be hearing from privacy advocates when the Big colleague
implications become of clearer to consumers. Mark your city directory
for early in 2005 and prepare to weather the homeward-bound storm of
privacy concerns that could reach hurricane proportions.




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