February 3rd, 2008Companies map new uses for tracking chips
Critics concerned technology would compromise privacy
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 commercials for foods you have a history of buying. Sniffers in your microwave might read a chip-equipped TV dinner and cook it automatically.
“We’ve seen so many different uses of the technology,” said 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 Justice Department.
By placing sniffers in strategic areas, companies can invisibly “rifle through people’s pockets, purses, suitcases, briefcases, luggage - and possibly their kitchen and bedrooms - anytime of the day or night,” said Rasch, now managing director of technology at FTI Consulting Inc., a Baltimore 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?’ ”
And what of personal information that is housed, collated and cross-referenced in vast, corporate databases?
Commercial data brokers can sell it, trade it or deliver it quietly to law enforcement and intelligence agencies - which they often do, Rasch says.
“Think of it as a high-tech form of Dumpster diving.”
Presently, the radio tag most commercialized in America is the 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 toll gates; they also track wildlife, such as sea lions.
Retailers and manufacturers want to replace bar codes with passive tags to track inventory. These radio tags transmit Electronic Product Codes, number strings that allow trillions 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 Government Accountability Office concluded in a 2005 report on RFID.
Indeed, unlike credit bureaus, data brokers 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. Some have called for greater regulation of data brokers, companies that pull together information on millions of individuals from public records, credit applications and many other sources, then offer summaries for sale.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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