RFID tracking chips in supermarkets

[Carol Anne]

I was in a Wal-mart store in the US where they apparently have tiny tracking chips attached to the merchandise which allow the goods to be tracked by electronic readers throughout the store. There was a big hoo-ha in the local paper about invasion of privacy etc. but I cannot understand what it is all about. What is the prime purpose of these chips? How do they help the store ? and how can it be an invasion of my privacy if it tracks the goods in my trolley while I walk around the store. Surely only a person who is up to no good would object to that?

[wildwood]

I agree with you completely Carol.
I am getting sick to the back teeth of all this political correctness.

[heathfield]

Yep, Big Brother is here. These chips can be attached to anything, passports, store loyalty cards, clothing, car keys, theater tickets, and are what pets are 'chipped' with. (Though Wisconsin has recently made it illegal for them to be inserted into humans!). One day, the RFIDs on your clothes will tell your washing machine what cycle to use, they say.

But they can be used by supermakets to track stock in transit, maintain store stock control (with automatic re-ordering), and, unlike barcoding, they can hold 'best before' information for stock removal and re-stocking. They could also provide for automatic checkout with no queuing - where the checkout 'reads' the contents of your trolley and presents you with the total to pay. (This means everything would have to be pre-packaged!).

Supermarkets are very keen to know the patterns of customer movement within their stores so as to 'maximise on product placement', i.e.make you buy more. In the past, RFID trolley tracking has been used, but individual item tracking is much superior to this. Should they put salad cream and mayonnaise beside the salads, or have them next to all the other sauces? Tracking will help them make up their minds.

The one instance where I'm fully in favour of RFID is on Singapore's buses and MRT rail transit system. Pay for a top-up card, and tap it on a sensor as you board and again as you alight, and payment is deducted from the card. For uses like this, it's brilliant.

[Carol Anne]

I don't see how its Big Brother Heathfield, I wpold be quite happy to have this technology applied in the way you describe. The tag in my top may tell the washer what it nees to do but its not telling anyone else is it? And I think that anyrhing that will make passports and bank cards more secure is badly needed.
Bring it all on I say.. though I shop to a budget, so no amount of cajolling will make me buy more anyway!

[heathfield]

It's Big Brother, Carol, because anything you carry with an RFID that contains personal data, like a 'contactless credit card', could allow you be tracked anywhere you go.

[Carol Anne]

They already do it with these blue numberplate reading cameras everywhere these days,and if they start charging road tolls, the satellite will track your every move too. As for mobiles, mine has been has been happlly giving out my location for the past 12 years.
As a very ordinary law abiding citizen I don't think I would give it a second thought. With the amount of terrorists in the world bent on murder and mayhem I still say bring it all on.
Perhaps there is a case for all criminals to be chipped for life, the better for keeping an eye on them.