Your Daily Paranoia :)

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Just in case you're prone to being paranoid and haven't had a good infusion yet today.

I'd hate to see the Left Behind nuts getting all smug about this, though .

RFID and Privacy - Tracking Your Patterns

Radio Frequency Identification Device. Sounds innocuous enough — but this tiny chip is causing big concerns.

Retailers say the chip, which can be implanted in products, is good as gold. They use it to track the flow of goods from supplier to store shelf and out the door. It tells them, for instance, when they're running low on razors so they can get in touch with the supplier and get more product in quickly.

Wal-Mart — which began using RFID tags to track stock in January 2005 — says the chips have reduced out-of-stock problems by 30 per cent. A Wal-Mart executive estimates that the top 100 retailers in the United States lose $69 billion a year in sales because they run out of product too often.

The devices can also tell a big retail chain if a featured product is properly displayed at its outlets across the country. If, for instance, the product tags show the stock still in the warehouse rather than on the display tagged to receive it, the discrepancy is known immediately. That means the chain doesn't have to send out people to survey a sampling of stores to see if the product is displayed the way it is supposed to be.

The technology isn't new. It has its roots in the Second World War, when radio frequency transponders were installed on Allied aircraft. They helped identify the planes so they wouldn't be shot down by "friendly fire." By the 1980s, the technology had developed to the point where it could be used to track railway cars and identify cattle.

The technology has also been used in the automotive industry for two decades, mainly to track parts. But new developments are moving the devices inside cars where they will eventually be able to tell you when the air pressure in one of your tires is too low. They're also used in engine immobilizers that shut down a car unless its RFID reader detects the right tag in the key used to start the car.

But the technology doesn't stop at tracking products. It can also keep tabs on you. Got one of those retail loyalty cards? It contains information about you — and that bottle of hair dye you just bought may contain an RFID tag. Buy the same product a few times over the course of a year, and the retailer might be able to detect a pattern and target you with product-specific advertising.

It's issues like that that have caught the eye of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. In her May 2006 report to Parliament, Jennifer Stoddart listed several reasons for concern.

* Surreptitious collection of information. The tags are small and consumers may not know they've been embedded in products. The tags can be read from a distance, so the person doesn't know when s/he has been scanned.

* Tracking an individual's movements. If a tag's been embedded in your car or in clothes you've bought, and there's a dense enough network of readers, somebody may know where you are — and where you're headed. Like a political rally or a protest.

* Profiling of individuals. What you buy could be linked to your credit card number — or that loyalty card — making it easy to create a profile of your buying habits.

* Secondary use of information. What if an insurance company or potential employer got hold of your profile and had concerns about some of the medication you may or may not be on?

Stoddart's office surveyed 14 Canadian corporations to get some idea of how the use of RFIDs is evolving in Canada. Twelve responded. Two of the companies were involved in the production of RFIDS. Of the remaining 10, four were using RFIDs, two were considering them, and four had tested or would be testing them. Stoddart's office asked those companies to respond to its concerns about security. Her report says:

"Six of the ten organizations responded in some way to the privacy issues mentioned in the survey letter. Of the six, one indicated that it would conduct a privacy impact assessment (PIA) in reviewing the possible use of RFIDs, one would not, two others might consider a PIA or privacy compliance test in their consideration of RFIDs, and two reported that they believed a PIA was not required, since their RFID application did not identify individuals and/or link with personal information."

Stoddart's report concludes that "greater public and political awareness of the potentially intrusive nature of RFID technology is essential now."

Her office will look at developing guidelines to help ensure that RFIDs don't erode privacy rights.

Meanwhile, Levi-Strauss & Co. — one of the world's largest makers of jeans — says it has begun a test of embedding the chips in its clothing at one U.S. location. It won't say where.

In Holland, a bookstore in a suburb of Amsterdam opened in April 2006, claiming to be the world's first fully RFID-tagged store. Part of the Boekhandels Groep book chain, the store expects the system to reduce labour costs, improve stock control and increase sales. The chain says customers are told about the tagging system — and that the tags are disabled as soon as the customer walks out with his/her purchase. The store has not been targeted by privacy groups.

[guigsy]

im confused as to how the tags would contribute to such a vast improvement in flow of goods and out of stock problems, since most retailers have sophisticated inventory management systems that are updated live when a product sku is sold, anyways... that side of it seems a little redundant to me.

and the bit about profiling customer buying habits... they do it anyway. whenever you give your postal code or your phone number, or any other information, it goes in the company database and all your purchases get tied to it... chip or no chip... loyalty cards are an even easier way of tracking it... chip or no chip.

i realize the idea of a chip to track the thing wherever it may go, even once its beyond the doors of the retailer, is cause for concern, but we're to the point now where we're being watched, tracked, and profiled wherever we go, chips or not. i guess the chip just makes it more *real*.

[Paan]

Yeah, I am well aquainted with RFID... I work for a software firm that is getting very involved with this technology. We are years away from having things tagged at the item level en mass, they are working with case and pallets at this point. Should be interesting to see how this plays out. The people who are worried about marketing patterns and such I think are over reacting. They can use your credit card now to track what you buy if they want... RFID or no RFID. What they will most likely end up doing is destroying the tag on purchase of the product (like they do with the alarm devices on CDs today).

... and I'll bet that many of these people complaining about having a chip on them that can be tracked from 10 feet away carry cell phones... where the can be tracked via satellite.

Mexico is actually putting RFID tags embedded in government officials for security.

[Paan]

im confused as to how the tags would contribute to such a vast improvement in flow of goods and out of stock problems, since most retailers have sophisticated inventory management systems that are updated live when a product sku is sold, anyways... that side of it seems a little redundant to me.

Volume. With the amounts of transactions and inventory that the Walmart size companies deal with, barcode scanning can't keep up. You can get 1 or 2 barcode scans per second where with RFID you can now get upwards of 2400. If you pick up a pallet and receive it, everything automatically gets read instead of having to break it down and scan it. Less human intervention = less time and less errors and less cost.

[guigsy]

interesting. that makes much more sense from a warehousing perspective.

[bradm]

It's also not just for warehousing. Have you ever seen those big container ships, like

? I was at a talk a couple of years ago about RFID (and other security issues), and the speaker pointed out that they had satellite shots of a couple of container ships (bigger than the one pictured above) that were parked right beside each other out in the middle of the ocean for about three hours...and nobody knows why (well, someone knows, but nobody's saying anything).

With RFID, it's easy for port officials to check a ship before it leaves port to see what's on it, and then check it again when it arrives at its next port to see what (if anything) it doesn't have anymore, or now has that it didn't, before.

Aloha,

Brad

[Paan]

Yeah, barcode systems are eons beyond doing things manually... but a barcode system still only works as long as the items are scanned. If something gets moved without scanning, it is essentially lost. With RFID, the plan is to have things tracked without requiring human intervention no matter where they are, inside the building or out. Plus... it's a built-in anti-theft system and built-on anti-counterfeiting system.

[bouche]

If you pick up a pallet and receive it, everything automatically gets read instead of having to break it down and scan it. Less human intervention = less time and less errors and less cost.

Ack! You just triggered a flashback from receiving and scanning at Toys R Us ! **shudder**

[bouche]

It's also not just for warehousing. Have you ever seen those big container ships, like

? I was at a talk a couple of years ago about RFID (and other security issues), and the speaker pointed out that they had satellite shots of a couple of container ships (bigger than the one pictured above) that were parked right beside each other out in the middle of the ocean for about three hours...and nobody knows why (well, someone knows, but nobody's saying anything).

With RFID, it's easy for port officials to check a ship before it leaves port to see what's on it, and then check it again when it arrives at its next port to see what (if anything) it doesn't have anymore, or now has that it didn't, before.

Aloha,

Brad

what...they're going to embed RFID's in a bunch of immigrants?

[timouse]

retailers dream about the day that RFID is in everything...no more tedious checkout, just push your cart through the archway scanner, empty your wallet, and scuttle off never mind privacy issues. i've already heard about wal-mart tracking return visitors using RFID. you buy a a pair of shoes from wal-mart, then walk back in wearing them next week. ding! the shoes register on the scanner, and they build a file of what you buy.

boo-urns!

[Lazlo]

i've already heard about wal-mart tracking return visitors using RFID. you buy a a pair of shoes from wal-mart, then walk back in wearing them next week. ding! the shoes register on the scanner, and they build a file of what you buy.

Almost makes me wish that Wal-Mart sold bondage gear and donated organs.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

If Wal-Mart's not selling live organs (voluntary or not) within five years, then they'll have failed their own mandate, and all the resources that might have got them there.