Computers and the Open Society: RFID Tagging

Currently the technology is in the form of a microchip, approximately 1/3 of a millimeter across. The chips are usually battery-less, and instead are powered by the radio wave used to read them. When the chip receives a particular radio blip, it responds with its unique ID code, thereby identifying whatever object it is embedded in. It acts similarly to a barcode, however it can be read from mere inches to several feet away. This allows the product to be scanned without the owner/wearer/consumer being aware of the identification process. RFID chips currently cost around 50 cents, but the price is dropping rapidly. There are no laws at the moment requiring products to be identified as containing RFID tags.

RFID tags are used in a variety of different networks for different purposes. They are used by airports, seaports, corporations (like Walmart) and the Department of Defense to track and locate baggage, shipping containers, consumer goods, and military supply shipments in a quick, efficient, cost-effective way. Visa used the chip as a replacement for cash as did the EZPass toll booth, and the European Central Bank embedded the chips in cash to count money quickly and combat counterfeiters. Individual citizens embedded the chip into pets for identification and locating, while the Chinese Communist Party Congress delegates were required to wear RFID tags so their movements could be constantly monitored and recorded.

The immediate stakeholders are the various companies embedding the chips into their products. In the above situations, the direct stakeholders would be the airports, seaports, corporations, Department of Defense, Visa, the European Central Bank, and the Chinese Communist Party Congress.

The indirect stakeholders would be the consumers purchasing and using these tracked products. Since the RFID tag is hard to locate and deactivate, consumers would have interests in how the tag affects their privacy. Employees required to wear RFID badges would also have privacy concerns, as might your pets, if you were able to ask them. Criminals and stalkers might be able to access this technology and thereby further their personal goals of tracking money and individuals.

The direct stakeholders value security, productivity, profit, efficiency, order, and organization. On the other side the indirect stakeholders value their privacy and anonymity.

The airports want to know where their baggage and employees are going for security reasons, but is it a violation of the individual’s privacy to track them like that? Consumers using products with embedded RFID tags could be tracked by governmental and other entities, despite the original intentions of profit, organization, and efficiency held by the corporate manufacturers and distributers. Marketers might value being able to craft advertisements based on information stored in RFID chips, while consumers might find this invasive and personal. The sheer information stored on the card and its ability to be read without the possessor's knowledge create a certain danger, however the security and efficiency benefits cannot be denied either.
A possible solution is the enactment of a law requiring notification of RFID presence in objects, and perhaps a notification of when they are scanned as well. This would at the very least inform the owner of the information transfer, though the information stored on the card would have to be managed and limited as well. The methods for reading the RFID tag would have to be encrypted as well so that criminals would be less able to acquire the information stored there.

Sources--

Nicki Hayes, November 20, 2001, http://www.wirelessdevnet.com/channels/wireless/features/newsbyte36.html
Scott Granneman, 6-26-2003, http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/169

Computers and the Open Society