CONSUMER PRIVACY QUESTIONED IN RFID FORUM; FEARS SAID UNFOUNDED
A consumer privacy debate continued late into the afternoon Mon. at the FTC’s radio frequency identification (RFID) forum. Most debate centered on the emerging technology’s potential to track goods or even people after the purchase of items fitted with an RFID tag. Sun Microsystems engineer Jim Waldo said RFID tags will remain either hard to read or very expensive, preventing the widespread dissemination needed for any privacy-violating surveillance or information gathering. Claiming “RFID tags are really bad sensors,” Waldo said the technology isn’t geared for real-world data collection, only basic inventorying.
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But real-world examples of RFID abuse are already out there, said Katherine Albrecht, dir. of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion & Numbering (CASPIAN). CASPIAN recently waged 2 campaigns, one against high-end Italian clothing retailer Benetton -- which resulted in the company’s decision not to have RFID chips sewn into their clothing to track inventory -- and the other against Gillette, whose unreported use of an RFID-based camera system made news in Mass. last year. Albrecht demonstrated how RFID sensors have already been discovered hidden in inconspicuous and surprising places like dog food packaging and shampoo bottles. Waldo countered that even if the RFID tags could become ubiquitous “the problem is not RFID, it’s database security. It’s always database security.”
Another concern is with a lack of consumer knowledge of how RFID affects their purchase, said Privacy Rights Clearinghouse Dir. Beth Givens. “There’s a difference between a consumer education campaign and a PR campaign,” she said, noting that simple rights like returning unwanted goods might be compromised if a consumer removes or damages an RFID tag, for example. Givens said an “impartial body such as FTC or National Academy of Sciences should oversee transition to retail-level RFID.”
“Imagine if an impartial body had overseen the VHS/Beta- Max debate,” said former Bureau of Consumer Protection Dir. William MacLeod, calling for market-driven responses, “with some partiality.” “You don’t need ‘RFID’ grafted onto section 5 [of the FTC Act] for the FTC to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive business practices.” MacLeod said that rather than narrowly defining RFID dos and don’ts, abuse control should be case-by-case. “You can bet” there will be cases brought by states’ attorneys gen. or the FTC “long before there is a law,” he said. This echoed the sentiment of engaged restraint expressed by FTC Comr. Mozelle Thompson earlier in the forum (CD June 22 p4).