RFID users say no privacy law needed

IDG News Service - A U.S. law enforcing privacy rules for radio frequency identification (RFID) isn't needed because companies experimenting with the technology are committed to protecting privacy, two such corporations told a U.S. House subcommittee yesterday.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. continues to move forward with plans for case- and pallet-level tagging of products with RFID chips. But most item-level tagging, where individual products are identified with RFID chips, is about 10 years away, Linda Dillman, executive vice president and CIO of Wal-Mart, told the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.
But others at the hearing noted that Wal-Mart conducted product tests on lipstick in an Oklahoma store in early 2003, prompting Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) to question whether consumers were adequately warned of the tests. With the potential to use RFID chips in passports and other government identification, as well as consumer products such as clothing, the misuse of RFID tracking raises "seriously Orwellian concerns," she said.
"Soon we could have Big Brother and big business tuning into the same frequency, where not only will they know where you are, but what you're wearing," Schakowsky added.
Privacy advocates told the committee that legislation is needed to protect consumers from potential uses of RFID. Three privacy advocates testifying yesterday offered few current examples of privacy concerns caused by RFID, but as the range of RFID scanning grows beyond the current 10 to 20 feet, RFID could allow corporations and governments to track people's movements and purchases, they said.
RFID uses small computer chips and antennas that are integrated into a paper or plastic label. Those chips can then be read by an electronic scanner.
A United Nations-affiliated group, the International Civil Aviation Organization, is already developing global standards for passports that include RFID chips, with the group looking for a chip that could be read up to a meter away, said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Program for the American Civil Liberties Union. In the hands of a dictatorial government, RFID-chipped passports or other identification could be used to track visitors to the country or identify attendees of a political rally, Steinhardt said.
Such uses of RFID could create "a whole new surveillance regime," he said.
Users of RFID defended it, however, saying its range was too small and its cost too prohibitive to use on most consumer products. Wal-Mart tested the RFID tags on large packages of lipstick, not individual products, said Sandra Hughes, global privacy executive at Procter & Gamble Co., Wal-Mart's partner in the test. Consumers were