RFID Chips Not Trusted by Consumers

MEXICAN GOVERNMENT PROMOTES MYTH OF RFID SECURITY Chip implants won't help crime wracked country, could make things worse "Promoting implanted RFID devices as a security measure is downright 'loco,'" says Katherine Albrecht, Founder and Director of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering). "Advertising you've got a chip in your arm that opens important doors is an invitation to kidnapping and mutilation."
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"Lawmakers in several states this week are preparing rules to prevent Wal-Mart and other companies from using radio-frequency identification tags to spy on their customers. In statehouses in Utah and California, and at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, legislators and regulators discussed how retailers and government spies might use the data gathered from RFID tags to monitor consumers. Utah's House of Representatives passed the first-ever RFID privacy bill this week, 47-23. Utah state Rep. David Hogue said that without laws to ensure consumer privacy, retailers will be tempted to match the data gathered by RFID readers with consumers' personal information." As more companies utilize RFID technology some politicians are arguing that consumers need new legislation to protect their privacy.

Read more at Wired News.


RFID 101 - Links to articles and development timeline

RFID Position Statement of Consumer Privacy & Civil Liberties Organizations

RFID Chip Privacy Controls - California Senator Introduces SB 1834

Informational Hearing: RFID Technology and Pervasive Computing

RFID Position Paper from Electronic Frontier Foundation

German RFID Scandal: Hidden devices, unkillable tags found in Metro Future Store Germans say, "Nein! We wont be your versuchskaninchen"

"We won't be your versuchskaninchen." That's the message German privacy advocates are sending to executives at the Metro Future Store in Rheinberg, Germany after discovering RFID devices hidden in the store's loyalty cards. They also found that RFID tags on products sold at the store cannot be completely deactivated after purchase, despite Metro's claims.

"Versuchskaninchen" is the German word for guinea pig, which is how German consumers feel Metro and its partners have treated them since opening the Future Store last year to test experimental RFID applications on live shoppers.

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Metro Future Stores Drop RFID loyalty card after protest

Consumer privacy fears over the tracking of goods tagged with wireless chips could negate any cost savings gained from using the technology in the supply chain, according to a leading industry analyst. The controversial radio frequency identification (RFID) tags have attracted attention from privacy groups such as the Consumers Against Supermarket Invasion and Numbering (Caspian), who are worried firms will continue to track RFID products even after they have been bought.

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CASPIAN LAUNCHES WORLDWIDE GILLETTE BOYCOTT
Gillette faces consequences for spying on consumers

August 11, 2003

CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) is calling for a worldwide boycott of Gillette products since the company failed to renounce a Gillette Mach3 "smart shelf" spy system.

"We have corroborated evidence that a Gillette 'smart shelf' fitted with radio frequency identification (RFID) devices can sense when packages are removed from a store shelf and, in response, take pictures of consumers handling them," says CASPIAN founder and director Katherine Albrecht. "Tracking and photographing consumers without their knowledge and consent is unacceptable."

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 7, 2003

RFID Site Security Gaffe Uncovered by Consumer Group CASPIAN asks, "How can we trust these people with our personal data?"

CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) says anyone can download revealing documents labeled "confidential" from the home page of the MIT Auto-ID Center web site in two mouse clicks.

The Auto-ID Center is the organization entrusted with developing a global Internet infrastructure for radio frequency identification (RFID). Their plans are to tag all the objects manufactured on the planet with RFID chips and track them via the Internet.

Privacy advocates are alarmed about the Center's plans because RFID technology could enable businesses to collect an unprecedented amount of information about consumers' possessions and physical movements. They point out that consumers might not even know they're being surveilled since tiny RFID chips can be embedded in plastic, sewn into the seams of garments, or otherwise hidden.


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RFID Chips are Here

RFID chips are being embedded in everything from jeans to paper money, and your privacy is at stake.
By Scott Granneman

Bar codes are something most of us never think about. We go to the grocery store to buy dog food, the checkout person runs our selection over the scanner, there's an audible beep or boop, and then we're told how much money we owe. Bar codes in that sense are an invisible technology that we see all the time, but without thinking about what's in front of our eyes.

Bar codes have been with us so long, and they're so ubiquitous, that its hard to remember that they're a relatively new technology that took a while to catch on. The patent for bar codes was issued in 1952. It took twenty years before a standard for bar codes was approved, but they still didn't catch on. Ten years later, only 15,000 suppliers were using bar codes. That changed in 1984. By 1987 - only three years later! - 75,000 suppliers were using bar codes. That's one heck of a growth curve.

So what changed in 1984? Who, or what, caused the change?

Wal-Mart.

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RFID spy-chippers leak confidential data on the Web
By Thomas C Greene in Washington

Public relations flacks eager to win the public over to the benefits of mass RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip proliferation have ironically managed to leave their own confidential plans unprotected on the
Web.

An outfit called CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) discovered the trove of marketing half-truths on the MIT Auto-ID Center Web site, available for all to see.

The irony of data leakage by a group dedicated to allaying the privacy concerns of millions of people whose every possession may soon be broadcasting data indiscriminately to the world is just too tempting to be ignored.

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