Re: Snooper Chips and ToasterTaps

sounds like what?

Errant E-Mail Shames RFID Backer


By Mark Baard |
02:00 AM Jan. 12, 2004 PT

The companies and organizations behind radio-frequency identification
tags are scrambling to improve their image by promising to protect the
privacy rights of consumers, after they were caught trying to dig up
dirt about one of their most effective critics.

The companies also said they are developing devices to disable RFID
tags, which they are placing on everything from shampoo bottles to suit
jackets in the United States and Europe.


RFID tags may eventually replace bar-code labels on all consumer goods.
When exposed to radio signals, they transmit a unique serial number for
individual items and help manufacturers, distributors and retailers
keep track of every item in their inventory. But privacy groups, led by
Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (or
CASPIAN), fear that businesses and governments can use those signals to
track individuals' movements inside stores and in public places.

One organization may have been shamed into soliciting CASPIAN's advice,
however. The Grocery Manufacturers of America this week inadvertently
sent an internal e-mail to CASPIAN suggesting it was looking for
embarrassing information about the group's founder, Katherine Albrecht.


The e-mail, written by a college intern at GMA, reads, "I don't know
what to tell this woman! 'Well, actually we're trying to see if you
have a juicy past that we could use against you.'"

The intern earlier had asked Albrecht to produce her personal
biography, "as part of an RFID research project," and became frustrated
when Albrecht asked what GMA planned to do with the information,
according to GMA spokesman Richard Martin.

But the research project had a limited scope: Albrecht was the only
person contacted by GMA, Martin admitted.

GMA, which represents the interests of RFID backers Coca-Cola, Procter
& Gamble and Gillette, is working on privacy guidelines for adopters of
RFID tags and the Electronic Product Code, the industry standard
governing how RFID tags are used with consumer goods.

And now the GMA says it wants Albrecht's advice.

"We are interested in maintaining a dialogue with consumer advocacy
groups like CASPIAN as we move forward in rolling out EPC and RFID,"
said Martin.

This represents an about-face by many RFID backers, who have often
played down their plans to tag individual items and accused Albrecht of
exaggerating the threat the tags pose to consumer privacy.

Wal-Mart, which tested RFID tags and readers in at least two of its
stores last year, said it would adhere to the RFID privacy guidelines
published by EPCglobal, the EPC standards body. The guidelines require
companies to publicly state how they plan to use data collected from
the EPC tags.

"We understand and care about the concerns that some of our customers
have about privacy and, as always, we put our customers' needs first,"
said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark.

Wal-Mart and other retailers say they plan to place RFID tags only on
the pallets and containers in their supply chains.

But Germany's largest retailer, Metro Group, says it plans to tag every
item in its stores with RFID. It said it is working with IBM to develop
a device that would disable RFID tags as customers left Metro stores.

CASPIAN's Albrecht said she welcomes tag-killing technologies, as well
as the overtures by RFID users who want to work with her. "I just hope
they're looking for a real dialogue about the implications of this
technology," she said, "and not simply trying to appear concerned."

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61868,00.html

Meanwhile in Britain

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68429,00.html

The British government is preparing to test new high-tech license
plates containing microchips capable of transmitting unique vehicle
identification numbers and other data to readers more than 300 feet
away.

Officials in the United States say they'll be closely watching the
British trial as they contemplate initiating their own tests of the
plates, which incorporate radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags
to make vehicles electronically trackable.

"We definitely have an interest in testing an RFID-tagged license
plate," said Jerry Dike, chairman of the American Association of Motor
Vehicle Administrators and director of the Vehicle Titles and
Registration Division of the Texas Department of Transportation.

So-called "active" RFID tags, like the one in the e-Plate made by the
U.K. firm Hills Numberplates, have built-in batteries, allowing them to
broadcast data much farther than the small passive tags used to track
inventory at retail stores.

Active RFID is already enjoying limited use on U.S. roadways. Under a
new program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is issuing RFID
tags to foreign freight and passenger vehicles as they enter the
country.

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