Given my post on being tracked by Oyster has raised RFID in this blog, I thought I would share an unedited draft of an entry on the subject that was published in Secrets & Lies. (For those in the USA - Secrets & Lies ). As always, any comments or feedback is most welcome.
The Pentagon’s role in anti-shoplifting RFID technology
Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a method of storing and retrieving data using devices called RFID tags. The tag can be the size of a grain of rice and attached or built into to any item. The in-built transmitter allows it to broadcast data such as location information or specifics about the tagged product such as price.
It is being increasingly adopted in the retail sector as it allows stores to track a product from the moment it leaves a depot all the way through to it going on a shelf and eventually being bought by a customer. It allows for much tighter stock control and is easy way of preventing theft from a shop as product will give alarm if someone tries to steal an item.
Like the Internet and the barcode before it, RFID is a spin-off from the needs of the Pentagon. The massive investment they have made in it (more than a $100 million over the last few years) is driven by a logistical desire to track stores and equipment in fine detail. The Pentagon’s role as the largest customer in the USA for many items has allowed them to demand manufacturers use the technology and its own RFID standards leading to its rapid take-up elsewhere. Many civil liberty groups in the USA and elsewhere believe RFID will allow manufacturers and retailers to track their customers through what they buy.
When I was the chief spin-doctor for the organisation representing British retailers (the British Retail Consortium) major efforts were made to get me to publicly back RFID. I was even told by one of the PR company representing an RFID manufacturer there were no civil liberty concerns and that I should help persuade retailers to back the technology beyond the point of sale. When I pointed out this was a lie, the tack changed and ‘generous sponsorship’ was mentioned and even ‘personal financial expression of gratitude’. It was an offer declined, but it gives a good indication of how a lot of expert opinion you read, watch and hear is generated – through a combination of lies and money.
14 comments:
The comic book Testament features the idea of RFID tags being used in people. Helps with the draft, and also has some kind of charge to allow the government to knock people if need be...
I tried Testament for a few issues. Whilst the use of RFID and other areas it looked at was interesting, the whole Old Testament gods theme did not really gel. The fact every few pages seemed to need an excuse to get one of the female characters semi-naked began to bore, as did the assorted rebel clichés. It might be the best anti-RFID comic book around, but for me it fell into that trap of trying too hard to be worthy and make its points about the nature of surveillance society whilst neglecting all the other things a work of fiction should do.
Even if it is benign, I have never met anyone that does not have some kind of agenda.
I always keep in the back of my mind that any 'Expert' who goes public and expresses any opinion is almost always getting paid by someone to do so.
Whether is it directly in bribes or through pressure brought from their work superiors / press agent it makes little difference.
Even cancer believes itself to be benign.
Lies and Money...Bush defined. While I personally appreciate some of the technological wonders that have come from the government (usually war related, sadly) like the computer...I really don't agree with this kind of tracking. This is getting much too Orewellian for my comfort level. What is next? Implants? Seriously. We are getting much too close to leading some science fiction sort of existence. There will always be free will...lest we are all involuntarily lobotomized...or just lobotomized through genetic adaptation because we are allowed to think less and less...I'm already just freaked out by Amazon.com and some other store...they send me emails offering me things based on my tastes...of what I've ordered before. It's invasive and annoying to me...let the rice chips fall by the wayside, please!
AMEN Cin!!
David, I have been loving the last few posts. Thanks for the frequent installments.
Also, I was able to order Secrets and Lies online. I received it yesterday and I am really enjoying it. I did have a more difficult time getting to sleep last night than usual. On the funnier side, I love the secret of Lydon's Johnson.
All the surveillance trends that have come about over the last several years have been freaking me out. Grocery stores that issue "saver cards", ATM machines, On-Star and these RFIDs. There are so many ways to manipulate a person if you know everything about them.
Yeah, i tried to warm up to Testament, but had to drop it after about the 8th issue. I am surprised Warren Ellis or Grant Morrison have not written anything about RFID tags...
I think that chipping of people is a certainty – in fact, it has already started. Some ‘swank’ European nightclubs promote it as a sign of exclusivity, while some companies are pushing the so-called security angle (‘if you work in a dangerous place like south America, you need to be chipped…’) A crock of shit, of course, as having a chip does not stop you being mugged or kidnapped, or having your corpse (or part of it with the embedded chip) used to gain access to a building.
I imagine that to introduce the chipping idea to the general public the gov’t will start with appeals to emotion, i.e., fear…. ‘if only young Jonny/Jenny had a microchip – like your pet does – we could have found them in time….’ and, ‘it’s only sensible that prisoners be chipped’ which leads to, ‘people with mental disorders would benefit from chipping too…it’s for their good, and yours…if they were to wander off…’
A brave new world? No, a very, very, sad world.
No privacy. Utter control. No individuality. Very sick.
Actually, I'm sure Warren Ellis would claim to have come up with the idea of a chipped-future for us all one afternoon whilst in Mr. Sergeant’s art class at The Deanes School in 1982. In its own way, RFID is touched upon in Transmetropolitan.
‘All cages for bears must be bated with honey if you want them to walk in.’ – Traditional Serbian saying.
Hello David, I'm aware of RFID in the US, but exactly what products do they track, and does the tracking end with the purchase?
It strikes me that RFID-technology is like any loaded-gun, but social-control is definitely on-the-minds of elites these-days. Probably because of the internet, they fear an informed-populace.
I gave up a long time ago on the notion that everything i do, see, read, eat, shit, etc. isn't tracked by Uncle Sam. My mother thinks she's still under the radar cos she doesn't have or use a computer. I stared at her in disbelief.
There is a quote by Benjamin Franklin that i think everyone should think about and live by:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Historical Review of Pennsylvania
Post a Comment