Will the Empire Strike Back?
After a period of relative calm, the privacy issue has erupted once again, leaving RFID's image with yet more bruises.
By Mark Roberto
Aug. 1, 2006—A one-sided story in the May issue of the respected U.S. magazine Consumer Reports led to a flurry of negative articles in the media. Then, several state legislators put forth bills restricting the use of RFID.
The bills pose little threat to companies deploying RFID systems, but the negative publicity they generate does. And since more companies are looking to deploy RFID at the item level—where the tagged item would end up in a consumer's hands—there is a growing feeling among leaders in the RFID community that it might be time to counter the negative reports.
EPCglobal, the nonprofit organization in charge of creating Electronic Product Code standards, and AIM Global, the trade association for automatic identification technology and service providers, have been active in responding to legislation proposed in the United States. Representatives of both organizations have testified at legislative committee and government agency hearings. But EPCglobal made a conscious decision not to speak about after-sales applications of EPC technologies, such as using the tags for recycling, for fear of raising privacy concerns.
Aug. 1, 2006—A one-sided story in the May issue of the respected U.S. magazine Consumer Reports led to a flurry of negative articles in the media. Then, several state legislators put forth bills restricting the use of RFID.
The bills pose little threat to companies deploying RFID systems, but the negative publicity they generate does. And since more companies are looking to deploy RFID at the item level—where the tagged item would end up in a consumer's hands—there is a growing feeling among leaders in the RFID community that it might be time to counter the negative reports.
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| RFID vendors and end users are weathering the storm of negative news articles and commentaries. (Illustration by William Rieser) |
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