Common Fears

The issue of privacy has been raised in the past, just as the advent of the barcode faced widespread resistance in 1974. Consumerists got laws passed in eight states that prevented cost savings of about $85,000 per store to be realized (due to required unit price tagging), which meant that in those states consumers paid more for their groceries. The movement was funded by the labor unions. According to industry experts, barcodes have served their purpose well and also served their time and now it's time for RFID to take over.

The common fears which were shared by the consumerists and the employees while deploying barcodes still exist but the priority has changed. Then, the paramount concern with barcodes implementation was the rise in unemployment, but now with RFID it has changed to lack of privacy.

According to privacy advocates, marketers and retailers can develop detailed profiles of their customers, based on their own records of transactions with an individual as well as on that individual's transactions with other institutions, with the help of RFID. Even when these data bases contain only transactional data, such as name, address, and product or service used or inquired about, they serve as the basic source for the development of detailed profiles by interconnecting them, which is now very easy with help from ubiquitous RFID.

RFID tags can be attached without knowledge of consumer and this is the major concern for privacy advocacy groups. According to them, consumer privacy is enhanced when consumers are aware of information practices and are given a choice over information provision and use. In contrast, consumer privacy is decreased when there is unwanted marketing contact or information gathering without consent.

As a result, according to privacy advocates, the potential for widespread dissemination, misuse, unauthorized access, and disclosure of personal information about consumers would increase exponentially and create a new source of privacy concerns for the public.

Cradle-to-grave surveillance

One of the common fears faced by shoppers and consumers is what happens when they leave the retail store. In a world of always-on marketing, some fear that these tags will become ubiquitous. If the tiny chips are kept active - and they can do that because they carry no on-board power, but simply react to queries from in-store systems - then more and more of customers' products will identify them as they go about their business. Soon, stores would have the capability to recognize the customer as soon as they enter, and that's what customers are worried about.

The privacy advocates take the cue from the movie 'Minority Report', when Tom Cruise walks through the shopping mall and all the signs recognize him. The scene takes place in the year 2054 in Washington, D.C. It portrays a society nearly devoid of privacy. According to privacy advocates RFID would be a great way for the government to keep tabs on all its citizens. To alleviate such fears, Dan Mullen, interim CEO of the U.S. branch of the Association for Automatic Identification and Data Capture Technologies (AIM) says that it would be really, really hard.

According to proponents of RFID, the consumerists are people who are afraid and who believe that they will be tracked around their homes. For them, the consumerists don't understand that the technology is only good for a few feet.