POLITICS

RFID raise great business possibilities, but personal privacy threats

There is a technology available that could be a boon to manufactures, wholesalers, retails and even the federal government, but which gives many civil rights advocates the shivers. It is called RFID, short for radio frequency identification device. RFIDs are wireless devices, or tags, that, unlike bar coding, can be read from a distance, without an physical contact with the reader and without requiring even a line of sight to the device. The uses for this technology are virtually unlimited. Inventories can be maintained using them, packages could be tracked with them and end-purchasers can be identified based on these tags.

Already companies like Home Depot and WalMart have invested heavily in RFIDs, and MIT’s Auto-ID Center is developing ways of using the technology for corporations such as Procter & Gamble, Gillette, Unilever, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, according to Wired News, an online information technology magazine.

“The supply chain today is a black box,” Kevin Ashton, executive director of the MIT center told the magazine. “There is very little accurate data about where things are, what they are, how much there is.” Ashton sees the standardized use of RFIDs as a breakthrough that will have far-reaching consequences. “This technology won’t just improve the supply chain, it will change it in ways we are only just beginning to understand,” he said.

An archaic form of this technology has existed since the 1940s, when the government used transponders to distinguish friendly from enemy aircraft. Through the 1970s, the federal government used the system for special projects, such as tracking livestock and nuclear material. Today, radio tags are used commercially for delivering packages, tracking luggage, tracking food in supermarkets and monitoring highway tolls. McDonald’s and ExxonMobile are using the tags to allow customers to pay for food or gas without waiting in line.

The Food and Drug Administration is considering ways to entice pharmaceutical manufacturers to place RFIDs on their products as a way of stemming the flow of counterfeit drugs into the country. But with the government consumed with its “War on Terror,” the Department of Homeland Security is busy looking for ways to use RFID technology in its efforts. According to the agency’s Web site, the DHS “is exploring the use of RFID technology as a tool that will better enable the program to fulfill its goals, which are to enhance the security of our citizens and visitors, facilitate legitimate travel and trade to and from the United States, ensure the integrity of our immigration system and protect the privacy of our visitors.”

While the government promises that “No personal information will be included on the tag,” its involvement in the development of technology that could be placed under the skin of a person (in much the same way pets are now tagged) and scanned from a distance is troubling.

“Radio Frequency Identification is an item tagging technology with profound societal implications,” reads a position paper jointly issued by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Used improperly, RIFD has the potential to jeopardize consumer privacy, reduce or eliminate purchasing anonymity and threaten civil liberties.”

These organizations are concerned that if a person’s identity was linked with unique RFID tag numbers, he or she could be profiled and tracked without their knowledge or consent. “For example, a tag embedded in a shoe could serve as a de facto identifier for the person wearing it,” the position paper states. “Even if item-level information remains generic, identifying items people wear or carry could (be used to) associate them with, for example, particular events, like political rallies.”

And the New Hampshire Legislature has taken notice of the potential for misuse of this new technology. This past session, both the House and Senate passed House Bill 203, which establishes a commission on the use of radio frequency technology. The bill, which was signed into law by Gov. John Lynch, would place on that commission not only legislators, but representatives from the attorney general’s office, the technology industry, various retail and business organizations, and the public. The commission is required to present a report on the uses — and possible misuses — of this technology to the Legislature by Nov. 1, 2008.

Given their minute size and ability to be hidden, RFIDs pose yet another ethical problem for a society whose almost neurotic desire for security has often led to the loss of its most sacred human rights.

Shir Haberman is the managing editor for news at the Portsmouth Herald.