BusinessWeek is running this article named "Like It or Not, RFID Is Coming." The lead in says "Scott McGregor of Philips Semiconductor, the leader in radio frequency ID chips, says they'll change the world -- and not threaten privacy"
Sounds nice, but McGregor's answer to the privacy question was that you can kill the tags, erase them, or remove them. That flies in the face of how they were going to change the world because dead, blank, or nonexistant tags don't enable the applications being touted by McGregor, such as matching up your old pair of shoes with a new pair.
He also likened the situation to the beginnings of bar code tagging, where (these are HIS words) "everybody was saying, retailers are going to collect information about what you buy. And none of that happened." Excuse me? Retailers aren't tracking what I buy? On this planet retailers know exactly what I buy.
Did I miss something?
Posted by holtzman at March 18, 2004 10:58 AM