This article was submitted by user Mike. When the backend security code hole is fixed, I will switch author attribution to user Mike. In the meantime, you can still get your own articles published by emailing me at idahofallz( at) gmail(dot )com.
In the coming months as you walk into your favorite store(s) without your knowledge or consent the store knows who you are, your spending habits, your credit history, and other intimate details that no one should know but you.
How can this happen you ask? Well, with the advance in technology there are computer chips that are embedded in our credit cards, clothing, and products we buy. These chips are called RFID or Radio Frequency Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).
This is a controversial technology that uses tiny microchips to track items from a distance. These RFID microchips have earned the nickname “spychips” because each contains a unique identification number, like a Social Security number for things, that can be read silently and invisibly by radio waves.
If you’ve read the book Spychips, you know that our worst consumer privacy nightmare is for those little anti-theft tags (known in the industry as “EAS” tags) to someday be combined with individually trackable RFID chips and slipped into consumer products. Well, those tags are now here.
An article in an RFID Journal (posted below), reveals that Checkpoint Systems has actually developed a product tag that combines anti-theft and RFID tracking capabilities. The tags were paraded out at the RFID Journal Live! Conference in Orlando, Florida. What’s more, Sensormatic, Checkpoint’s only serious competitor, is running a whole conference session to describe the benefits of using this combined tracking technology.
This is beyond a doubt the #1 most important — and dangerous — development in the consumer privacy arena today. It means consumers may soon be buying, wearing, and carrying products tagged with RFID at the item level, because Checkpoint and Sensormatic specialize in hiding anti-theft tags deep inside of products, then distributing those products to nearly a million retail locations worldwide.
Now they want to do the same thing with RFID spychips. If they are not stopped, Checkpoint and Sensormatic will soon be hiding these dual-use tracking devices in your belongings, where they will be able to silently and secretly transmit information about you to marketers, criminals,
and the government.
This will be a consumer privacy nightmare — and no one will even know it’s happening. That’s because industry lobbyists have prevented RFID labeling legislation from passing anywhere in the nation. There is no requirement that retailers or manufacturers tell us when they’re hiding RFID tags in our clothes, shoes, books, or anything else.
Our only protection against this threat is the strength of our voices –and the power of our protests.
Below is a list of relevant companies that attended the RFID Journal Live conference in Orlando. They heard from Sensormatic and Checkpoint what a good idea it would be to start hiding RFID tags in the individual items you buy. Please look over the list, and if you see a company you buy from, tell them politely but firmly that if you catch them using RFID at the item level you will not only boycott their company, but you will tell everyone you know to boycott them, too.
Companies attending the RFID Journal Live! Conference:
Academy Sports & Outdoors, Albertsons, The ALDO Group, Anheuser-Busch, Best Buy, Blockbuster, Blommer Chocolate, Brass Eagle, CDW Corp., Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Electrolux, Energizer Battery, Fuji Photo Film USA, The Gap, General Mills, Gillette Company, Hampton Products, Hasbro, Hershey Foods, Hewlett Packard (HP), Hunter Fan, Hy-Vee, Inc., Jockey International, Limited Brands, L’Oreal USA, Loblaws, Louisville Bedding, Lowe’s Companies, Luxottica Retail, Maidenform Worldwide , Mars, Marubeni America, Masterfoods USA, McIlhenny Co., Meyer Corp., Nestle USA, Newell Rubbermaid, OfficeMax, Pacific Cycle, Payless Shoe Source, Pharmavite, Procter & Gamble, S. C. Johnson, SAKS Inc., Sara Lee Foods, Schick, Scott Paper Limited, Sears, Sears Canada, Sherwin-Williams, Storekraft, Stride Rite Corp., Tanimura & Antle, Target Corp., The Valvoline Co., Unilever, Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Wm Wrigley Jr Co, Wegmans
[To learn more about the conference, and to see a video on it, see: http://www.rfidjournalevents.com/live/ ]
Write to as many of these companies as you can. Let them know how strongly you oppose RFID spychips. When you’re done writing an email, call their customer service lines for good
measure. Send a fax, write snail mail, send a singing telegram. But whatever you do, don’t take this lying down. For more details on this situation log onto www.spychips.com. I highly recommend the book.
Popularity: 9%
Related posts:
Gato got runned over by Marcus many moons ago. Be ye daft, 2486? 
Let's have a new poll, alright, Joe?
Loading ...
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Wal-Mart is apparently already using RFID chips to track palettes, and would like to see them in all products.
The promise of consumer ease is that with RFID chips, you would not have to take items out and scan each one. You only have to pass the cart through the RFID scanner, like the security scanner at the doors, and the system will “scan” all the items in your cart.
The promise goes further in that you would not have to take your debit card out to swipe and enter a PIN, because the RFID scanner would also sense your debit card and deduct the charges automatically.
Now you see the potential for abuse?
I mentioned a PR story regarding RFID chips in an old article wishing for library self-checkouts: http://idahofallz.com/2006/06/06/idaho-falls-library-needs-self-check-outs/
Apparently there are encrypted and unencrypted RFID chips, and of course the safer encrypted ones cost 100 times more so are cannot be as economical on products as the unencrypted RFID chips.
Has anyone seen RFID chips in use around Idaho Falls? What do you think?
Aren’t US passports currently or soon too be equipped with RFID chips. You can buy RFID shielded wallets and such online. Apparently a thin sheet of aluminum can block the signal.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/shoppers.html
It all depends on how you look at it.
A whole lotta paranoid conspiracy-mongering without any specific examples. Exactly how does this constitute a privacy threat?
RFID tags have an extremely limited range on a very specific frequency. They can’t tell what you do outside of the store. They can’t read the information off your credit card. And, at this point, they aren’t compatible between stores.
Sure, there might be such a chip buried in the sole of those expensive sneakers you bought. But what is the store going to learn about you? Only that a customer bought this pair of shoes. And the store will know if you shop again while wearing that pair of shoes.
In all likelyhood, the store probably isn’t connecting a name to a purchase. So all they really know is a customer bought a product and that product showed up in use in the store at a later date.
Now then, admittedly, there is the capability to link the purchase with a specific customer. As a marketing consultant, I am constantly amazed at how few businesses gather ANY information about their customers. Most stores simply use it as a form of high-tech inventory control.
Even if the store uses the chip and transmitter to link to you as an individual, what have they learned about you? Nothing more than bits and pieces about your shopping patterns in that particular store.
People said the same things about bar codes…
I should also add that no store can legally execute a transaction with your expressed permission. Just bringing the cart into the checkout doesn’t cut it.
People always bring stuff to the cashier and then decide at the last minute not to purchase, for whatever reason. That’s why you SIGN the credit card receipt. That’s why you SIGN your check.
If a store were to auto-transact without some sort of means of having your unmistakable permission, then you would have more than just an abuse. You would grounds for a lawsuit.
Additionally, credit card charge-backs are expensive and a huge hassle for retailers. Your signature protects THEM if you later try to claim that you never made that purchase.
Even at gas stations and on the internet, you have to have an additional step to alert the customer and confirm the purchase. These safeguards are required by law. And they guard both the customer AND the retailer.
Any business would be shooting itself in the foot by auto-transacting without some sort of confirmation.
The point is that there is information sharing going on amongst the companies listed above.
There is also the capability to use the RFID enabled profile to know your shopping preferences. Say for example that the store computer knows I am a Hostess Raspberry Filled Donut freak. As I head down the isle the shelf housing the donuts has been converted to electronic pricing….as I near the donuts, the store computer is aware of my location and changes the price from $3.18 to $4.45. The guy behind me who has no history pays $3.18 and I am none the wiser to this practice.(Wal-Mart stores in New Hampshire have already done this in 2004 until they received protests on site and shut this practice down.)
RFID and EAS technology are real. Ace, I am sure that you being in the marketing field see nothing wrong with RFID….however, even Sen. Chuck Schumer of NY is trying to get the Senate Banking Committee to agree on legislation to inform consumers their credit cards and products have RFID technology in them. Why? Because it can be used for invasive purposes under the guise of consumer research and money saving offers.
If the government were behind this there would be large scale cries of Big Brother.
There was a thread on IFz.com about identity theft recently. Another thread identified how companies that have private info. on you don’t have to protect your info. like the government does. Why would we want to make our spending habits and individual choices easy for anyone to see, let alone corporations that could easily use that data against us later?
Simply put, this is yet another invasion of our privacy. Only this time, private corporations are doing it. From my perspective this is even more dangerous than the government in many ways. Mainly, I don’t have the same protections in place that I have from the government. Additionally, these corporations can then hand the info. over to the government with no recourse by me. This technology is dangerous to all of us and should be treated as such.
apparently you’ve never heard of marketing lists?
one of the most valuable customers are those who buy mail order nose hair trimmers. those guys will buy anything and there name and address is valuable on marketing lists.
who thinks walmart wouldnt compile customer purchases and sell the profiles? who trusts walmart that much
Marketing lists are just that…to market products. They don’t have near every purchase made and the ability to change prices on you…the ability to track your movements….
Essentially, this technology makes it easier and more accurate for companies to compile data on us (to our detriment). Marketing lists didn’t know everything about us like this technology has the capability of doing.
Thanks for your interest in this topic, Mike. Actually, my being in marketing gives me some insight that might surprise you.
As I said in my first post, you’d be surprised how little use is made of the technology beyond inventory control. Also, you’d be surprised how little information sharing goes on even between departments of the same company, let alone competing companies. Sometimes, corporate politics can work in the customer’s favor.
As regards the “price adjustments” I know a store that engaged in that practice without the aid of RFID. If you picked up a certain product near the check-out, it cost a dollar more than if you picked it from it’s location at the back of the store.
As for marketing lists, Walmart is a minnow. The big boys are the credit card gatekeepers. They know a whole lot more about your consumer habits than an RFID chip ever will.
I think this demonstrates corporate willingness to rape our privacy even more than they already have.
If it’s no big deal, why have them? Barcodes work just fine.
There’s no need for anyone to know what I purchase, and I consider my shopping one of the last vestiges of privacy I have in this world.