The Internet boom and bust in the late 1990s created fear about the risks associated with investing in speculative technology. Consumers have grown wary of spending money on “must need” gadgets that have an uncertain future in the marketplace. Although often billed as products that will change the world, many of these inventions have a lifetime so short that most people don’t even remember them a year after they are introduced. Consider the vinyl-record sized laser disks that entered the market in the mid 1990s. This invention lasted about six months, and cost speculative consumers thousands of dollars to have what has now probably become an oversized drink coaster.
Despite the hype and uncertainty, new inventions will continue to capture our imagination. For those that seem to gather traction in the early stages of product development, a widespread marketing campaign demonstrating the advantages and benefits becomes the tipping point for many consumers to take the plunge and spend money. Yet a growing concern with new technologies are their “alternative applications,” rarely mentioned in profit-oriented, corporate marketing campaigns.
Such is the case for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), an electronic bar-coding system that communicates information between two objects using radio waves. Although development of this technology has been in the works for the past twenty years, only recently has it been introduced to the public mainstream. Significant investment by leading global retailers including Wal-Mart (USA), Metro (Germany) and Sainsbury’s (UK), has created buzz in technology circles around the world about the potential for RFID to revolutionize the retail industry.
RFID systems consist of two components: a tag and a reader. The tag consists of a tiny chip, about the size of a match head that serves as a portable database. Attached to the chip is a tiny antenna that receives and transmits radio waves. RFID readers communicate with the tags to encode updated information into the database and read existing information within the tag.
Compared to traditional barcodes, RFID tags are more robust and able to hold considerably more information. For example, the barcode on a can of cola simply identifies the item as a can of cola. With RFID it is possible to assign each individual can in the world a unique identification number. Information such as where a specific can was made, where it was shipped to and who bought it, can then be programmed into an RFID tag’s portable database.
Over the past five years, retailers have invested millions in large-scale pilot projects to understand the financial benefits of RFID. One of the major problems plaguing the retail industry is maintaining visibility of products. When items are shipped from the manufacturer to a retailers distribution centre, it is essential to see where the products are at all times. Without this visibility, getting the right product to the right store at the right time becomes very difficult and costly. Since most retailers purchase products from their manufacturers in cardboard boxes, the opportunity to label each box with radio frequency tags to identify the specific contents is thought to be a viable solution to the problem.
However, as investment continues to mount, there is growing concern about ulterior motives of this technology.
Numerous organizations, including Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN), have voiced strong concerns about the risks associated with RFID. CASPIAN warns that retailers and manufacturers could ultimately apply RFID tags at the item level, not just the box level. At the point of purchase, retailers could then create purchase profiles for each consumer to assist in future marketing campaigns.
In recent years, one of the more publicized campaigns against embedding RFID tags came against Gillette. As indicated by CASPIAN, “Gillette has been caught hiding tiny RFID surveillance chips in the packaging of its shaving products. These tiny, high tech spy tags are being used to trigger photo taking of unsuspecting customers.”
However, Perry Sheppard, from the Department of Media Information and Technoculture at the University of Western Ontario, suggests, “Gillette Sensor blades, with their relatively high cost and small size, seem to have been targeted as an item of common theft. One of the proposed rationales for using RFID in this product has been to track its movement off the shelves-whether due to theft or purchase-and subsequently cue the proper inventory controls. Although I don’t agree with the use of this technology to cue a ‘photo trigger,’…in most cases consumers are already under video surveillance in this environment, and have already agreed to this invasion of privacy upon entering the store.”
Perhaps of greater concern is the potential RFID has for abuse in data mining and integration. As Sheppard continues, “Umbrella corporations have access to many different types of consumer information available in their subsidiaries’ databases. By cross-referencing and merging these mass amounts of data, a very succinct profile could be generated on individual consumers that might include their spending habits, income, and place of work and potentially get as specific as what type of razor blades they use.”
Although this issue is already apparent in the credit industry, Sheppard points out that “RFID could add yet another level of uncertainty to an already complex problem.” Post-September 11, the U.S. government has been endorsing and developing programs that facilitates their ability to gain access to personnel information once considered private. As Sheppard indicates, “The U.S. government is actually working on a project of this nature-ominously called ‘The Matrix.'”
As part of their Keep America Safe and Clean program, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) posted a short video on their website that seeks to highlight the potential dangers of privacy infringement. Although most fears brought forth by organizations such as CASPIAN and the ACLU are often seen as exaggerated, the video demonstrates that consumers are becoming increasingly wary of privacy issues and the ability of “big brother” to track and monitor their lives. In the case of Gillette, mounting public pressure over fears that RFID technology would be used for ulterior motives resulted in the company canceling the initiative.
According to a June 24 article in The Economist, RFID is growing and is poised to “track the trillions of objects that circulate the world every year in planes, lorries and ships, through ports and warehouses, on to shop shelves, through tills and into homes and offices.” However, considering the cost of RFID tags ranges from $0.30 – $0.50 per tag, applying one to a can of cola won’t be a fiscal reality for many years.
Beyond the retail industry, many libraries are investigating opportunities to affix RFID tags in books. By installing readers in the ceilings throughout the library, it would be possible to instantaneously locate a book. The inability to locate books that are said to be “on the shelf” not only creates frustration for library users, but also results in libraries spending millions of dollars replacing books that are erroneously considered lost.
