23 Nov 2002

Auto-ID: Tracking everything, everywhere  

Katherine Albrecht, CASPIAN

[The following is an excerpt from the article, "Supermarket Cards: Tip of 
the Retail Surveillance Iceberg," accepted for Publication in the Denver 
University Law Review, June 2002]  

"In 5-10 years, whole new ways of doing things will emerge and 
gradually become commonplace. Expect big changes." - MIT's Auto-ID 
Center  

Supermarket cards and other retail surveillance devices are merely the 
opening volley of the marketers' war against consumers. If consumers 
fail to oppose these practices now, our long term prospects may look 
like something from a dystopian science fiction novel.  

A new consumer goods tracking system called Auto-ID is poised to 
enter all of our lives, with profound implications for consumer privacy. 
Auto-ID couples radio frequency (RF) identification technology with 
highly miniaturized computers that enable products to be identified 
and tracked at any point along the supply chain.  

The system could be applied to almost any physical item, from ballpoint 
pens to toothpaste, which would carry their own unique information in 
the form of an embedded chip. The chip sends out an identification 
signal allowing it to communicate with reader devices and other 
products embedded with similar chips.  

Analysts envision a time when the system will be used to identify and 
track every item produced on the planet.  

A number for every Item on the planet

Auto-ID employs a numbering scheme called ePC (for "electronic 
product code") which can provide a unique ID for any physical 
object in the world. The ePC is intended to replace the UPC bar 
code used on products today.  

Unlike the bar code, however, the ePC goes beyond identifying product 
categories -- it actually assigns a unique number to every single item 
that rolls off a manufacturing line. For example, each pack of cigarettes, 
individual can of soda, light bulb or package of razor blades produced 
would be uniquely identifiable through its own ePC number.  

Once assigned, this number is transmitted by a radio frequency ID tag 
(RFID) in or on the product. These tiny tags, predicted by some to cost 
less than 1 cent each by 2004, are "somewhere between the size of a 
grain of sand and a speck of dust." They are to be built directly into 
food, clothes, drugs, or auto-parts during the manufacturing process.  

Receiver or reader devices are used to pick up the signal transmitted by 
the RFID tag. Proponents envision a pervasive global network of millions 
of receivers along the entire supply chain -- in airports, seaports, 
highways, distribution centers, warehouses, retail stores, and in the 
home. This would allow for seamless, continuous identification and 
tracking of physical items as they move from one place to another, 
enabling companies to determine the whereabouts of all their products 
at all times.  

Steven Van Fleet, an executive at International Paper, looks forward 
to the prospect. "We'll put a radio frequency ID tag on everything that 
moves in the North American supply chain," he enthused recently.  

The ultimate goal is for Auto-ID to create a "physically linked world" in 
which every item on the planet is numbered, identified, catalogued, and 
tracked. And the technology exists to make this a reality. Described as 
"a political rather than a technological problem," creating a global 
system "would . . . involve negotiation between, and consensus among, 
different countries." Supporters are aiming for worldwide acceptance of 
the technologies needed to build the infrastructure within the next few 
years.  

The implications of Auto-ID

"Theft will be drastically reduced because items will report when they 
are stolen, their smart tags also serving as a homing device toward their 
exact location." - MIT's Auto-ID Center  

Since the Auto-ID Center's founding at the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology (MIT) in 1999, it has moved forward at remarkable speed. 
The center has attracted funding from some of the largest consumer 
goods manufacturers in the world, and even counts the Department of 
Defense among its sponsors. In a mid-2001 pilot test with Gillette, 
Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, and Wal-Mart, the center wired the 
entire city of Tulsa, Oklahoma with radio-frequency equipment to verify 
its ability to track Auto-ID equipped packages.  

Though many Auto-ID proponents appear focused on inventory and 
supply chain efficiency, others are developing financial and consumer 
applications that, if adopted, will have chilling effects on consumers' 
ability to escape the oppressive surveillance of manufacturers, retailers, 
and marketers. Of course, government and law enforcement will be 
quick to use the technology to keep tabs on citizens, as well.  

The European Central Bank is quietly working to embed RFID tags in 
the fibers of Euro bank notes by 2005. The tag would allow money to 
carry its own history by recording information about where it has 
been, thus giving governments and law enforcement agencies a means 
to literally "follow the money" in every transaction. If and when 
RFID devices are embedded in banknotes, the anonymity that cash 
affords in consumer transactions will be eliminated.  

Hitachi Europe wants to supply the tags. The company has developed a 
smart tag chip that -- at just 0.3mm square and as thin as a human hair 
-- can easily fit inside of a banknote. Mass-production of the new chip 
will start within a year.  

Consumer marketing applications will decimate privacy

"Radio frequency is another technology that supermarkets are already 
using in a number of places throughout the store. We now envision a 
day where consumers will walk into a store, select products whose 
packages are embedded with small radio frequency UPC codes, and 
exit the store without ever going through a checkout line or signing 
their name on a dotted line."  Jacki Snyder, Manager of Electronic 
Payments for Supervalu (Supermarkets), Inc., and Chair, Food Marketing 
Institute Electronic Payments Committee  

Auto-ID would expand marketers' ability to monitor individuals' 
behavior to undreamt of extremes. With corporate sponsors like 
Wal-Mart, Target, the Food Marketing Institute, Home Depot, and 
British supermarket chain Tesco, as well as some of the world's 
largest consumer goods manufacturers including Proctor and Gamble, 
Phillip Morris, and Coca Cola it may not be long before Auto-ID-based 
surveillance tags begin appearing in every store-bought item in a 
consumer's home.  

According to a video tour of the "Home of the Future" and "Store of 
the Future" sponsored by Proctor and Gamble, applications could include 
shopping carts that automatically bill consumer's accounts (cards would 
no longer be needed to link purchases to individuals), refrigerators that 
report their contents to the supermarket for re-ordering, and interactive 
televisions that select commercials based on the contents of a home's 
refrigerator.  

Now that shopper cards have whetted their appetite for data, marketers 
are no longer content to know who buys what, when, where, and how. 
As incredible as it may seem, they are now planning ways to monitor 
consumers' use of products within their very homes.  

Auto-ID tags coupled with indoor receivers installed in shelves, 
floors, and doorways, could provide a degree of omniscience about 
consumer behavior that staggers the imagination.  

Consider the following statements by John Stermer, Senior Vice 
President of eBusiness Market Development at ACNielsen: "[After bar 
codes] [t]he next 'big thing' [was] [f]requent shopper cards. While these 
did a better job of linking consumers and their purchases, loyalty cards 
were severely limited...consider the usage, consumer demographic, 
psychographic and economic blind spots of tracking data.... 
[S]omething more integrated and holistic was needed to provide a 
ubiquitous understanding of on- and off-line consumer purchase 
behavior, attitudes and product usage. The answer: RFID (radio 
frequency identification) technology.... In an industry first, RFID 
enables the linking of all this product information with a specific 
consumer identified by key demographic and psychographic markers....
Where once we collected purchase information, now we can correlate 
multiple points of consumer product purchase with consumption specifics 
such as the how, when and who of product use."  

Marketers aren't the only ones who want to watch what you do in your 
home. Enter again the health surveillance connection. Some have 
suggested that pill bottles in medicine cabinets be tagged with Auto-ID 
devices to allow doctors to remotely monitor patient compliance with 
prescriptions.  

While developers claim that Auto-ID technology will create "order and 
balance" in a chaotic world, even the center's executive director, 
Kevin Ashton, acknowledges there's a "Brave New World" feel to the 
technology. He admits, for example, that people might balk at the 
thought of police using Auto-ID to scan the contents of a car's trunk 
without needing to open it. The Center's co-director, Sanjay E. Sarma, 
has already begun planning strategies to counter the public backlash he 
expects the system will encounter.  

All Copyrights are acknowledged. 
Material reproduced for educational and research purposes only.

                          -==-

Source: Raiders News Updates - http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/

Note: CASPIAN = "Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and
                Numbering" - http://www.nocards.org/news/index.shtml

Cheers, Steve..

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