p2pnet.net News:- RFID – radio-frequency identification – is hot and senator Patrick Leahy says the US congress should start looking it.

RFID chips might be OK for inventory management but, "we would not want a retailer to put those tags on goods for sale without consumers’ knowledge, without knowing how to deactivate them, and without knowing what information will be collected and how it will be used," he says an Information Week story here.

A little more than a year ago activists in Rheinberg, Germany, staged a protest outside the Metro Extra Future Store, the world’s fifth largest retailer that’s also a test site for RFID tracking and other technologies. They’d found RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips in the store’s customer loyalty cards as well as products for sale, including goods from IBM, Gillette and Procter & Gamble.

RFID chips are also set to replace bar codes, courtesy of VeriSign. The Pentagon is also into it. Its decision to go for RFID will cover virtually everything bought by the US military, from beans to bullets and from toothpaste to tank parts.

And RFID chips were at the centre of a major scandal during the World Summit on the Information Society when prime ministers, presidents and other high-level officials were bugged by badges they were wearing.

Leahy’s interest came to light at a conference on video surveillance and other technologies at Georgetown University’s law school in Washington,

It’s time to begin a national dialogue on RFID before a "potentially good approach is hampered because of lack of communication with Congress, the public, and lack of adequate consideration for privacy and civil liberties," Information Week quotes him as saying. "We need clear communication about the goals, plans, and uses of the technology, so that we can think in advance about the best ways to encourage innovation, while conserving the public’s right to privacy."

California state senator Debra Bowen has introduced legislation to regulate the use of RFID technology, says the report, adding:

"That bill outlines three requirements for any business using an RFID system that can track products and people. The business must tell customers it’s using an RFID system and get express consent before tracking and collecting any information. The bill also says companies must detach or destroy any RFID tags that are attached to a product offered for sale before the customer leaves a store."

This entry was posted on Friday, March 26th, 2004 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

HOME

Viewed 2126 times