RFID Gazette: CASPIAN Fights Item-Level RFID Tagging in Wal-Mart Stores

May 13, 2004

CASPIAN Fights Item-Level RFID Tagging in Wal-Mart Stores

Wal-Mart has begun item-level tagging some of its items in seven of its stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas. Hewlett-Packard products for sale in the consumer electronics departments of these stores have live RFID tags attached to them. The implementation of this technology, however, has consumer and privacy rights activists up in arms.

Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN) is one of the groups to lash out against Wal-Mart, saying that item-level RFID tagging violates a moratorium issued last November by 40 civil liberties organizations.

"Wal-Mart is blatantly ignoring the research and recommendations of dozens of privacy experts," says Katherine Albrecht, founder and director of CASPIAN. "When the world's largest retailer adopts a technology with chilling societal implications, and does so irresponsibly, we should all be deeply concerned."

Albrecht also warns consumers that the industry's ultimate goal is to have an electronic product code (EPC) embedded in an RFID tag on every item in the world. This would create a society in which everything can be kept under surveillance at all times. While this complaint may seem like something out of Brave New World or 1984, the capability of such a reality may be closer than most are willing to admit. It seems unlikely, however, that this will actually come to pass, seeing as how many consumers have begun lashing out against such an invasion of privacy.

More information can be found at the Register, out-law.com, Wal-Mart's FAQs and CASPIAN.

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May 13, 2004 in Privacy, Wal-Mart | Permalink