This article at computerworld casts doubt on the economic viability of RFID, at least in the short term.
According to C|Net, Forrester research has released a report downgrading the number of suppliers Wal-Mart can expect to achieve its January 2005 mandate for tagging cases and pallets. Wal-Mart asked its 100 top suppliers to comply by 1/2005, of which Forrester originally estimated 60% could comply. Now Forrester is saying as few as 25% will make the deadline.
Forrester also calls into question the cost-effictiveness of the mandate, as well as the readiness of RFID products to meet the needs of Wal-Mart and its suppliers.
Human rights organisations from Europe, North America, Australia and Asia have sent an open letter to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) railing against plans to create an international 'identity register' that would force the inclusion of biometrics and controversial RFID tracking tags in all passports by 2015, according to this report on silicon.com.
According to this report from C|Net, Wal-Mart is going to miss it's much publicized first deadline for RFID integration with its suppliers. Drug suppliers were supposed to be delivering their wares in RFID-enabled containers to a Wal-Mart distribution center in Arkansas by the end of this month. While some suppliers have started tagging their pallets and cases, Wal-Mart has decided to push back the deadline to the end of June.
C|Net quotes Michael Liard, the senior analyst following radio tag technology at the Venture Development Corporation, a market research company in Natick, Mass: "Wal-Mart keeps cutting back on its requirements," he said "They're not ready; the industry's not ready; and the technology is not ready."
Another retailer joins the ranks of Wal-Mart and Target, mandating RFID tracking of cases and pallets by its top 100 suppliers in 2005. This time it is the $36 billion food and drug retailer, Albertsons.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20040305S0014
Subdermal RFID -- chipping people -- is the specialty of VeriChip Corp, aka Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. They've announced 4 exclusive distributorships which have committed to purchasing a total of 66,000 VeriChips over the next 5 years. Along with the chips, the distributors have committed to 4,900 scanners.
Press release:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040325005220&newsLang=en
From Newsweek. Courtesy of Philips.
US Senator Patrick Leahy gave a speech yesterday at the Georgetown University Law center featuring RFID and privacy. He says that we are "On The Cusp Of A Micro-Monitoring Revolution."
Full text at:
http://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/200403/032304.html
According to this New Scientist article, Intel researchers are suggesting that senior citizens be outfitted with glove-mounted RFID readers, tagging the important (and not so important) objects in their lives, and then running software to infer their actions throughout the day. The idea is to let people who need constant monitoring maintain an independant lifestyle.
Favorite quote: "Would you rather have a chip on your toilet seat or a person in the bathroom with you?"
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?
Nokia announced an RFID reading mobile phone accessory at CeBIT today. They are not targeting the consumer market with this, at least not yet, but personal RFID devices would be an equalizing influence in the coming RFID deployment feared by privacy advocates.
Personal RFID devices would let you scan objects to see if they had a tag. They could tell you when another RFID reader was active in your area, and best of all, they would enable services under YOUR control to exploit the presence of RFID tags.
For example, you could comparison shop without running from store to store -- zap the book you are browsing in the retail shop, click a button, and it shows up at home three days later for 1/2 the price.
Some coverage on the Nokia announcement:
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1153568
http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/104/C2607/
http://www.edubourse.com/finance/actualites.php?idActus=13857
DALLAS, TX (March 8, 2004) – In its recently launched RFID Future Lab, Wincor Nixdorf is demonstrating how radio frequency identification (RFID) technology can improve the management of goods within the retail supply chain, while also improving customer service by personalizing the shopping experience and streamlining the payment process.
The complete press release can be found here on the TI website.
From InformationWeek:
Fear is a potent emotion, and it has been used to rally people to oppose many well-meaning but poorly understood initiatives. Radio-frequency identification proponents are beginning to understand that as they fight legislative efforts to clamp restrictions on a technology that's just beginning to be deployed by a few businesses.
http://informationweek.securitypipeline.com/news/18311264
(The full article mentions Katherine Albrecht and quotes Ari Juels)
The entire FDA Report on the use of RFID to combat drug counterfeiting is online. We should have blogged the report itself back in February, but we forgot. Sorry! Here it is.
InfoWorld brings us this more in-depth story on Metro's RFID strategy shift:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/01/HNmetrostore_1.html
UK department store House of Fraser is about to embark on their own item-level tagging trial. Unlike at other item-level retail trails, where protesters have called for boycotts, House of Fraser will remove the tags at point-of-sale, and will then reuse them.
I'm eager to learn how CASPIAN and the like view this trial.
http://www.just-style.com/news_detail.asp?art=33145
From ComputerWeekly.com:
US retailer Target has confirmed that it will expect its top "supplier partners" to apply radio frequency identification tags to all pallets and cases they ship to unspecified "select" regional distribution centres beginning next spring.
All suppliers will be expected to comply by spring 2007, a company spokesperson said.
Industry analysts said they expected more retailers to issue RFID mandates in the coming months.
http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=128775
RSA, with help from TI, has implemented and demonstrated their blocker tag, as reported by Wired News. Albrecht, while expressing apreciation for RSA's efforts, expressed some concern that this solution might only be available to the "technology elite."
At least blocker tags should be cheap. As I understood Ari Juels, et al., paper on blocker tags, the only reasons for them to cost any more than the tags they are blocking would be economies of scale and any patent fees RSA might extract. If it is affordable to put tags on every product, then surely it will be affordable to put blocker tags on every shopping bag.
The point is taken, however, that relying on blocker tags, or the like, shifts the privacy burden to the consumer. Giving the consumer tools to protect their privacy is a good idea. Who is better motivated? Requiring that corporations respect consumers' privacy is good too.
Germany's retail giant Metro Group is to withdraw its Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) customer loyalty cards following protests who said they cards could track customers as they shop. Metro issued 10,000 cards as part of an experiement in their Rheinberg store, near Dusseldorf.
http://www.in-sourced.com/article/articleview/1396/1/1/
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8833393%255E15306,00.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/35919.html
Alert readers will recall that Katherine Albrecht was involved, once again, with these protests.
http://www.foebud.org/texte/aktion/rfid/index-gb.html