- CHICAGO -- RFID is too powerful
a technology and Wal-Mart and its suppliers are too cozy with the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security for the companies to be trusted with the
data gathered from radio tags on consumer goods, say a civil rights lawyer
and a privacy law expert.
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- But the companies, led by Procter & Gamble, are opposing
RFID legislation, and want consumers to allow them to keep RFID tags active
after checkout, and to match shoppers' personal information with particular
items.
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- The civil rights lawyer, Barry Steinhardt, director of
the Technology and Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union,
spoke at the RFID Journal Live conference in Chicago last week. He said
companies could use RFID tags to profile their own customers and share
their information with the government -- violating the companies' own privacy
policies.
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- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile,
is working with companies like Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble to develop
RFID (which stands for radio-frequency identification) to monitor America's
consumer supply chains.
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- Homeland Security may find the combination of live tags
and customer profiles hard to resist when investigating suspected terrorists,
or as a means to monitor entire groups of people, said the privacy expert.
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- "The surveillance potential for RFID is huge,"
said Scott Blackmer, a lawyer and board member of the International Security,
Trust and Privacy Alliance.
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- ISTPA has developed a privacy framework that organizations
can use to comply with emerging privacy laws and policies.
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- P&G and other companies last week suggested they
want to keep RFID tags active after checkout, rather than disabling them
with so-called "kill machines." The companies also want to match
the unique codes emitted by RFID tags to shoppers' personal information.
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- RFID will make it easy for companies and government investigators
to establish the whereabouts of citizens, by reading the active tags on
their clothing and other items in private and public places.
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- Investigators in divorce cases and criminal investigations
already regularly subpoena E-Z Pass automatic toll records, which come
from RFID readers, to figure out where an individual's car was at a particular
time.
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- P&G said retailers selling its goods can be trusted
to guard consumers' privacy without laws, even if they decide to match
their personal information with the serial numbers from the RFID tags.
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- "If someone selling our products violates our (RFID)
privacy policies, we will stop doing business with them," said Sandra
Hughes, P&G's global privacy executive.
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- P&G opposes laws restricting the use of RFID tags
in the consumer supply chain and in retail stores, said Hughes.
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- But without laws preventing businesses from abusing RFID
data, U.S. businesses selling RFID-tagged goods may be shut out of overseas
markets, where privacy laws are more stringent.
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- "We have a cowboy mentality about privacy in this
country," said the ACLU's Steinhardt. "But we will eventually
suffer for it, because we are not complying with global norms."
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- Companies belonging to EPCglobal, the organization that
will keep track of the serial numbers emitted by RFID tags, are counting
on Americans to let them read RFID tags, even after purchase.
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- The companies argue that consumers with active RFID tags
on their products can return those goods without a receipt. P&G's Hughes
also said that active tags and shoppers' personal information could speed
recalls of contaminated and defective products.
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- Another EPCglobal company is developing smart consumer
appliances that read active RFID tags.
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- "Privacy is cheap," said Peter Glaser, senior
manager of client workshops at Accenture Technology Labs, which is developing
a smart medicine cabinet and a smart closet, which use RFID readers to
encourage people to take their medicine and help them coordinate their
wardrobes. "Companies just need to tell consumers what's in it for
them."
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