[e-privacy] [RFID] A Bit of Privacy

[Andrea Glorioso]

http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1536/1/128/

 	
A Bit of Privacy
Instead of killing RFID tags to protect consumer privacy, we could add
a privacy bit.


May    2,  2005 -  RFID  privacy    inflames   passions as   few other
technological  issues can. Readers of  this  journal are familiar with
the  enormous swirl of media  attention  around the topic. A statistic
compiled by Ravi Pappu  of ThingMagic summarizes the situation nicely:
Of the Web  pages returned by  a Google  search on the  term "RFID" in
late 2003, some   42 percent also contained  the   word "privacy."  If
item-level  RFID  tagging comes to  pass, there  is no  gainsaying the
privacy concerns    it will bring.  There  is   a real  possibility of
constellations  of    small  wireless  devices promiscuously  emitting
personal information. Some of the  backlash against RFID, however, has
assumed a form  that is purely dramatic.   Terms like "spy-chips," for
example, neatly  encapsulate the anxieties of a  certain class of RFID
opponent. But  they distort any meaningful discussion  of the  uses of
RFID, deny its benefits and cast privacy as a black-and-white issue.

[...]

Killing tags would kill many visions of RFID benefit for consumers. If
consumers possess  only dead RFID tags,  then smart appliances such as
RFID-enhanced refrigerators, ovens    and washing  machines  will   be
unrealizable. Likewise,    RFID   systems to  aid the    elderly  with
medication compliance and  navigation of  their environments will   be
more  difficult  to deploy. The  killing  of tags  would preclude many
other possibilities for consumers,  like item returns in  retail shops
without receipts (not to mention the concomitant benefits to industry,
like  refined quality-control information),  retrieval  of lost items,
automated product-part searches and so forth.

[...]

To construct a broad RFID infrastructure safely, a balance needs to be
struck  between  privacy and utility.  The  benefits  of tags must  be
readily available, but so too  should the means for restricting  their
emission  of information. The aim  of this article  is to describe the
privacy bit,  a  simple technological tool  that helps  achieve such a
balance.  The privacy bit  may be viewed as  a natural extension of an
existing  technology  known as  electronic  article   surveillance, or
EAS.  EAS  can serve as  a   conceptual and technical  bridge  for the
privacy bit.

+++

Ciao,

--
Andrea Glorioso             sama at miu-ft.org         +39 333 820 5723
        .:: Media Innovation Unit - Firenze Tecnologia ::.
	      Conquering the world for fun and profit
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