Talk to someone about RFID and it won't be too long before someone says the 'P' word: privacy.
When we were just dealing with bar codes - and they're not going to go away in a hurry because they're tried, tested, and trusted - no one batted an eyelid about privacy. Mention RFID, and those Big Brother words are released from Pandora's box: tagging, monitoring, tracking, mistrust.
People can indeed be identified using the technology, which is why public transport systems such as Oyster on the London Underground are using it, along with use in biometric passports, micro-payment systems, office security ID tokens, and loyalty cards.
The EU seens huge potential in RFID - see my earlier post about the EU's CERP and Bridge projects - "EU steps up its RFID interest" - and it is also aware of the potential for public mistrust over the technology. So the European Partliament's Scientific Technology Options Assessment (STOA) group has delivered a report of how RFID is perceived by both the public and those running the technology.
The study concludes that RFID users need to know what the owners of RFID systems can and are allowed to do with their data, and suggests that RFID users themselves should play a part in developing new RFID environments.
Read a summary of the report on Cordis, the European science and technology news portal. A link there will take you to STOA and the complete report.