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Wal-Mart ready to play Big Brother
(John Naughton, The Observer, November 30, 2003)
When the history of our descent into Orwellian surveillance comes to be written, 2003 will stand out. And the names that will be most prominent in that context, oddly enough, will not be David Blunkett and John Ashcroft (pernicious though their initiatives have been), but Wal-Mart, Tesco and Gillette - firms linked by a strange acronym: RFID. . . . RFID stands for radio frequency identification, and it's going to replace bar codes. Whereas nowadays every product has a bar code printed on it somewhere, within a few years every packet will have an RFID tag printed on it somewhere. This tag is in fact a tiny microchip that broadcasts its 96-digit identity code via very low-power radio. The ID code can be 'read' by special devices located in the vicinity - in supermarket shelves and tills, microwave ovens, fork-lift trucks and so on. . . . RFID has been on the horizon for a while, so why will the year 2003 seem significant? Because in June, Wal-Mart - the 800lb gorilla of the retailing business - announced that it would require all of its suppliers to put RFID tags on their products by 2005. . . . So what's the problem? Well, although the economic case for RFID technology is compelling, it also represents a step-change in the technology of surveillance. It offers the potential of tracking every object ever made - every shirt, book, DVD, record and banknote. According to engineering trade paper EE Times the European Central Bank is working on a hush-hush project to embed RFID into the fibres of every euro note by 2005 as an anti-counterfeiting device. And a school in Buffalo, New York has already deployed it as a pupil-monitoring system - recording the time they arrive in the morning. Next steps involve using RFID to track library loans, disciplinary records, cafeteria purchases and visits to the nurse's office - and eventually to track punctuality for every class and verify the time they get on and off school buses. . . . You can see where this is heading. . . . We will certainly need new legislation to regulate this monster - which will arrive much more quickly than was originally predicted.

posted by LoZo 5:46 PM