Re: Businesses praise chips as privacy groups worry

free.tuneup@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Jan 27, 1:19 pm, Jim Higgins <gordian...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Businesses praise chips as privacy groups worryhttp://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/surveillance/2008-01-27-rfid_N.htm

Here's a vision of the not-so-distant future:

* Microchips with antennas will be embedded in virtually everything you
buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to
track consumer items -- and, by extension, consumers -- wherever they go,
from a distance.

* A seamless, global network of electronic "sniffers" will scan radio
tags in myriad public settings, identifying people and their tastes
instantly so that customized ads, "live spam," may be beamed at them.

* In "Smart Homes," sensors built into walls, floors and appliances will
inventory possessions, record eating habits, monitor medicine cabinets --
all the while, silently reporting data to marketers eager for a peek
into the occupants' private lives.

Science fiction?

In truth, much of the radio frequency identification technology that
enables objects and people to be tagged and tracked wirelessly already
exists -- and new and potentially intrusive uses of it are being
patented, perfected and deployed.

Some of the world's largest corporations are vested in the success of
RFID technology, which couples highly miniaturized computers with radio
antennas to broadcast information about sales and buyers to company
databases.

Already, microchips are turning up in some computer printers, car keys
and tires, on shampoo bottles and department store clothing tags.
They're also in library books and "contactless" payment cards (such as
American Express' "Blue" and ExxonMobil's "Speedpass.")

Companies say the RFID tags improve supply-chain efficiency, cut theft,
and guarantee that brand-name products are authentic, not counterfeit.
At a store, RFID doorways could scan your purchases automatically as you
leave, eliminating tedious checkouts.

At home, convenience is a selling point: RFID-enabled refrigerators
could warn about expired milk, generate weekly shopping lists, even send
signals to your interactive TV, so that you see "personalized"
commercials for foods you have a history of buying. Sniffers in your
microwave might read a chip-equipped TV dinner and cook it without
instruction.

"We've seen so many different uses of the technology," says Dan Mullen,
president of AIM Global, a national association of data collection
businesses, including RFID, "and we're probably still just scratching
the surface in terms of places RFID can be used."

The problem, critics say, is that microchipped products might very well
do a whole lot more.

With tags in so many objects, relaying information to databases that can
be linked to credit and bank cards, almost no aspect of life may soon be
safe from the prying eyes of corporations and governments, says Mark
Rasch, former head of the computer-crime unit of the U.S. Justice
Department.

By placing sniffers in strategic areas, companies can invisibly "rifle
through people's pockets, purses, suitcases, briefcases, luggage -- and
possibly their kitchens and bedrooms -- anytime of the day or night,"
says Rasch, now managing director of technology at FTI Consulting Inc.,
a Baltimore-based company.

In an RFID world, "You've got the possibility of unauthorized people
learning stuff about who you are, what you've bought, how and where
you've bought it ... It's like saying, 'Well, who wants to look through
my medicine cabinet?"'

He imagines a time when anyone from police to identity thieves to
stalkers might scan locked car trunks, garages or home offices from a
distance. "Think of it as a high-tech form of Dumpster diving," says
Rasch, who's also concerned about data gathered by "spy" appliances in
the home.

"It's going to be used in unintended ways by third parties -- not just
the government, but private investigators, marketers, lawyers building a
case against you ..."

Heady forecasts

Presently, the radio tag most commercialized in America is the so-called
"passive" emitter, meaning it has no internal power supply. Only when a
reader powers these tags with a squirt of electrons do they broadcast
their signal, indiscriminately, within a range of a few inches to 20 feet.

Not as common, but increasing in use, are "active" tags, which have
internal batteries and can transmit signals, continuously, as far as
low-orbiting satellites. Active tags pay tolls as motorists to zip
through tollgates; they also track wildlife, such as sea lions.

Retailers and manufacturers want to use passive tags to replace the bar
code, for tracking inventory. These radio tags transmit Electronic
Product Codes, number strings that allow trillons of objects to be
uniquely identified. Some transmit specifics about the item, such as
price, though not the name of the buyer.

However, "once a tagged item is associated with a particular individual,
personally identifiable information can be obtained and then aggregated
to develop a profile," the U.S. Government Accountability Office
concluded in a 2005 report on RFID.

Federal agencies and law enforcement already buy information about
individuals from commercial data brokers, companies that compile
computer dossiers on millions of individuals from public records, credit
applications and many other sources, then offer summaries for sale.
These brokers, unlike credit bureaus, aren't subject to provisions of
the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970, which gives consumers the right
to correct errors and block access to their personal records.

That, and the ever-increasing volume of data collected on consumers, is
worrisome, says Mike Hrabik, chief technology officer at Solutionary, a
computer-security firm in Bethesda, Md. "Are companies using that
information incorrectly, and are they giving it out inappropriately? I'm
sure that's happening. Should we be concerned? Yes."

Even some industry proponents recognize risks. Elliott Maxwell, a
research fellow at Pennsylvania State University who serves as a policy
adviser to EPCglobal, the industry's standard-setting group, says data
broadcast by microchips can easily be intercepted, and misused, by
high-tech thieves.

As RFID goes mainstream and the range of readers increases, it will be
"difficult to know who is gathering what data, who has access to it,
what is being done with it, and who should be held responsible for it,"
Maxwell wrote in RFID Journal, an industry publication.

The recent growth of the RFID industry has been staggering: From 1955 to
2005, cumulative sales of radio tags totaled 2.4 billion; last year
alone, 2.24 billion tags were sold worldwide, and analysts project that
by 2017 cumulative sales will top 1 trillion -- generating more than $25
billion in annual revenues for the industry.

Heady forecasts like these energize chip proponents, who insist that
RFID will result in enormous savings for businesses. Each year,
retailers lose $57 billion from administrative failures, supplier fraud
and employee theft, according to a recent survey of 820 retailers by
Checkpoint Systems, an RFID manufacturer that specializes in store
security devices.

Privacy concerns, some RFID supporters say, are overblown. One, Mark
Roberti, editor of RFID Journal, says the notion that businesses would
conspire to create high-resolution portraits of people is "simply silly."

Corporations know Americans are sensitive about their privacy, he says,
and are careful not to alienate consumers by violating it. Besides, "All
companies keep their customer data close to the vest ... There's
absolutely no value in sharing it. Zero."

Industry officials, too, insist that addressing privacy concerns is
paramount. As American Express spokeswoman Judy Tenzer says, "Security
and privacy are a top priority for American Express in everything we do."

But industry documents suggest a different line of thinking, privacy
experts say.

A 2005 patent application by American Express itself describes how
RFID-embedded objects carried by shoppers could emit "identification
signals" when queried by electronic "consumer trackers." The system
could identify people, record their movements, and send them video ads
that might offer "incentives" or "even the emission of a scent."

RFID readers could be placed in public venues, including "a common area
of a school, shopping center, bus station or other place of public
accommodation," according to the application, which is still pending --
and which is not alone.

In 2006, IBM received patent approval for an invention it called,
"Identification and tracking of persons using RFID-tagged items." One
stated purpose: To collect information about people that could be "used
to monitor the movement of the person through the store or other areas."

Once somebody enters a store, a sniffer "scans all identifiable RFID
tags carried on the person," and correlates the tag information with
sales records to determine the individual's "exact identity." A device
known as a "person tracking unit" then assigns a tracking number to the
shopper "to monitor the movement of the person through the store or
other areas."

But as the patent makes clear, IBM's invention could work in other
public places, "such as shopping malls, airports, train stations, bus
stations, elevators, trains, airplanes, restrooms, sports arenas,
libraries, theaters, museums, etc." (RFID could even help "follow a
particular crime suspect through public areas.")

Another patent, obtained in 2003 by NCR Corp., details how camouflaged
sensors and cameras would record customers' wanderings through a store,
film their facial expressions at displays, and time -- to the second --
how long shoppers hold and study items.

Why? Such monitoring "allows one to draw valuable inferences about the
behavior of large numbers of shoppers," the patent states.

Then there's a 2001 patent application by Procter & Gamble, "Systems and
methods for tracking ...

read more >>

Won't yard sales and resale shops play hell with that system. or
buying gifts or a husband buying tampoons for his wife or giving your
hand-me-downs to the neighbor's kid.

Those would be the small exceptions to the mass of product that would be tracked everywhere. The way is open for almost unlimited data mining.

--
Civis Romanus Sum
.

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