Just as Jell-o desserts helped create demand for the refrigerator, a recent show on the food network does the same for object tracking. Microwaves, countertops, and refrigerators that respond to food all seem to work the same way - RFID tags on everything in your house.
USA Today ran this article about a supermarket using it's loyatly card to notify customers who had purchased recalled food. Is this a violation of privacy or not? Is there a resposibility to notify a person in a case like this if the technology is available? How about a public health agency? Or someone's doctor?
Guy Kewney turned in this article in eWEEK about RFID and privacy. He's a bit harsh, but makes some interesting points:
"Of course, you only have to say, "RFID," and even quite techno-innocent people will blench, turn pale, and start chanting mantras about privacy. They are afraid of ghosts. They have this fearful vision of a future in which your clothes contain RFID chips and as you walk down the street sensors pick them up and report your location back to Big Brother.
"Reality, naturally, is less exciting. For the few who have got all their information about RFID from strident activists with wide mouths and closed ears, these things only have a range of about three inches. And yet...reality may, after all, turn out to be even more exciting because these mobile payment gizmos look like they're going to betray far more about their owners than you could possibly believe (unless you were working in the field, of course).
"Amalgamate the data from the bank with the data from Exxon with the data from a transit system. Then add a loyalty card system, a mobile phone payment network, and a Government ID card system. The result: the State can track every citizen with far, far more detail than a simple RFID tracker could ever manage.
This week, the message is, get used to it. Radio tagging of products is going to happen.
That is likely to lead to protests from the privacy lobby over concerns about how the tracking data is used - concerns that will need to be addressed, said [Safeway CIO] Francis.
“What that means with regard to civil liberties organisations I really don’t know. But that’s something I feel we have to overcome. As a technology industry we have to overcome,” he said.
full story at: http://www.silicon.com/management/itdirector/0,39024673,39117877,00.htm
More News on the EPC/Verisign effort.
EPCGlobal has selected VeriSign to Run EPC Directory. VeriSign currently issues security certificates (among other things).
More on the Katherine Albrecht / GMA e-mail mishap in Wired:
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61868,00.html
The Grocery Manufacturers of America asked Katherine Albrecht (noted consumer privacy advocate and speaker at our recent workshop) for her bio. She politely asked why, and was inadvertently mis-routed some internal communications that indicate the request was made to help prepare a smear campaign against Katherine.
Doh!
Press release:
http://www.spychips.com/gma.htm
The smoking gun:
http://www.spychips.com/email_2.pdf
Well, not quite, but this article in the RFID Journal indicates that both official and the industry are now thinking of using RFID chips to enable greater tracking of meat through the food supply. This will help track things like infected beef (e.g., ground mad cows). What the article doesn't say is that this will also help protect against a terrorist attack --- or at least allow the tracking and faster recovery if terrorists go after the food supply.
This article in SiliconValley.com reports that in 2004, the RFID industry will overcome privacy concerns -- not by committing to stronger privacy measures and policies, but rather by buying off the consumer.
"Despite high street retailers including Marks & Spencer and Tesco trialling the contentious technology and then ditching it due to the reaction from the public, a report from Forrester Research has found that consumers wouldn't mind being tracked with the radio tags if it meant cheaper shopping."
Full article at:
http://www.silicon.com/management/government/0,39024677,39117651,00.htm
Here is an article about the Walmart and DoD RFID deployment in the NY Post, or at least the online edition. I found three things about this article remarkable. First is that the story is breaking in this mainstream news publication, second they label the PR around using RFID to make food and terrorists traceable as spin by the RFID/EPC industry to counter privacy concerns, and lastly that they sold links to RFID/EPC companies off the page.