Business As Usual

My wife and I enjoy taking trips to our neighbors to the North. Canada is close enough to be convenient yet different enough to feel like a vacation. To get across the border I needed to purchase a new "enhanced ID" from the state of Michigan. The card enhancement is an RFID chip which has information that the border guard uses to verify my identity. The existence of this chip has caused quite a stir with privacy advocates.

RFID stands for "radio frequency identification device." In the case of my card it supposedly holds just one bit of data which is a serial number. This serial number, according to the state, is the only data which is stored on the chip. A border guard scans my card, receives the number and uses it to link to a database with which they can verify who I am.

My card was mailed to me with a sleeve. The information I received said that the sleeve protected my card from being scanned by any RFID readers that I might come across. Stores use them in growing frequency, no pun intended, which is the privacy issue that I will come to. My question is this: If there is only a serial number on my card why would I be worried about it being randomly scanned? Is the sleeve that it came in truly useful or just for the paranoid?

A little background about RFID is in order. The chip is used to track store inventory although, in the future, new uses may be found. Each chip has its own identification or serial number. The chip emits a signal that a hand-held reader can scan. A supplier could potentially place these chips within a shipment of goods. A GPS (global positioning system) system would be able to monitor or track the movement of the shipment as it travels to its destination.

Some stores keep chips in each and every product. It makes it easier to scan them as they are brought into the store for purposes of inventory. Finding a lost item also becomes simpler if RFID readers are placed at various points within the building. In this way a company may know when a product arrives, where it is located and if it leaves the store as part of a sale or as a result of theft. The issue privacy advocates have involves the items that we buy and take home.

If the items that the consumer purchases have the chip still attached, and if they can be monitored via GPS, how far does this process go? Privacy proponents worry that a situation is created by which every consumer will be matched to each retail purchase. One might argue that this is done already with store cards one needs to get a particular discount. The RFID chips take this process one step further. Potentially everything that we buy can be monitored by anyone with an RFID reader.

Realistically there are few companies that use these chips and readers. Most of our privacy has been eroded due to laws enacted after 9-11 and various technologies that have existed for years. Even if someone truly cared to learn all that they could about me I probably could not stop them. Most of us, to be perfectly honest, care little about what our neighbors do. We give away more about our private lives in everyday conversations than any RFID chip ever will.

Technology will always be a double-edged sword. What can help can always harm. Any tool or device can be used for evil purposes if one chooses to do so. I do not believe that any retail establishment cares much about my buying habits beyond sending me coupons and keeping me as a customer. I do not see the harm if this new RFID device helps them become more efficient. It might even keep the store costs down and prices at a reasonable level. I think that we can all get behind that.