Tune into RFID

Hi David.

Interesting blog.

Im curious to know your thoughts, do you think this 'soft law' is enough to prevent civillians being tracked/watched?

Would it be possible for 'hackers' to switch the tags back on?

Which way to you think the RFID community will sway?

Cheers

Ross

Hi Ross,

Thanks for your comment. I think this soft law is the EU's balanced way of meeting concerns about privacy, while at the same time not wanting to stunt RFID's growth. You could argue that the EU's been pretty cautious in its approach. It first mooted action two years ago, which is a long time in technology terms. And even now it's going out to more consultation, which I think is right. Will hackers be able to switch tags back on? I hope not - that would certainly muddy the waters. And I don't know if it is technically possible anyway. Which way will the RFID community sway? Well, I know some of the retailers aren't too amused abouit having to deactivate tags. I can't help thinking that this is getting all too complicated, and that the EU is using a sledgehammer to crack a moving nut. If you look at the critical Article 7.0 and the way it's framed, which I'm going to post, you can see that in legalese, it all looks rather wordy. Do we need to protect privacy? Yes. Is it really that big an issue? Are people up in arms about it? No, I'm not sure they are. Is this the best way to go about it? Not sure about that either - we're still in pretty uncharted territory. But the next few months will be interesting. What do you think? David

Recognising that RFID applications are at a fledging state, the business case for RFID for many retailers is still only just about positive and others still have difficulty finding it. Any EC requirement to offer deactivation with all its complexities, or even ubiquitous simple tag removal, would be very likely to result in the stopping of item level adoption by retailers. This is likely to halt the long term opportunities and benefits of RFID for consumer and retailer before they have been obtained.

RFID offers a real opportunity for European retailers to become more efficient.

This will not happen if the legislation fails to strike the right balance between consumer protection and the benefits consumers and retailers can obtain from an efficient service driven retail industry. As EPCglobal business manager at GS1 UK, I would like to comment on some initial points that the European Commission should consider during the 8 week consultation period:

1. An opt-out choice, where tags would only be deactivated when requested by the consumer, is a proportionate, feasible and efficient tool to provide control to the consumer. This can be offered after the point of sale and after checkout. Opt-in provisions (requiring automatic deactivation) would render the introduction of item-level RFID and the development of additional after sales services economically impossible.

2. Enabling deactivation at the consumer’s request for all RFID tags, as a general principle, fulfils the precautionary principle and goes beyond data protection obligations, instilling consumer confidence in the technology.

3. The ability to ‘opt in’ for tag removal, through the use of hang tags, peel able labels, or removing packaging is relatively simple but very expensive and excessive for retailers. It is not proportionate as the cost of removal is significant and to add new RFID labels to returned items would be costly. It is also worth noting that several major European retailers who are using or trialling RFID applications have had almost no requests for tags to be removed by customers.

4. Limit over-detailed information requirements to those RFID application operators whose applications appear to have an impact on privacy; while maintaining the need for transparency and information.

5. Continue to support the development of the technology and its post sale applications; while respecting the consumer’s right to make informed choices as item level tagging progressively becomes a reality in Europe and beyond.