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JULY 21, 2003
By Jane Black Playing Tag with Shoppers' Anonymity New product-inventory tracking technologies have privacy advocates up in arms. Smart companies will pay close attention to their concerns In Biblical times, it was David vs. Goliath. Today, it's Katherine vs. Wal-Mart (WMT ). Katherine Albrecht is a Harvard doctoral candidate and founder of a self-styled consumer group called Customers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion & Numbering (CASPIAN for short). She's on a crusade against the giant retailer and other corporations that want to use a new technology called RFID, or radio frequency ID tags. These are tiny computer chips attached to merchandise that beam out unique identification information, such as serial numbers, to scanners as far as 10 feet away. Wal-Mart announced in January that it would test a so-called smart shelf at its Brockton (Mass.) store that would use RFID tags to track the sale of Gillette (G ) razor blades and automatically update inventory. Albrecht has been throwing stones at Wal-Mart ever since. On June 6, she claims to have seen the smart shelf in use -- and she took several photos for proof, using a disposable camera purchased on the premises. Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Williams denies the shelf was ever put into use beyond the pilot trial and adds that the retail giant has no plans to use RFID technology in its stores in the foreseeable future. Instead, it's focusing on implementing RFID by 2006 to track inventory as it's shipped from suppliers to distribution centers and out to stores (see BW, 7/14/03, "Bar Codes Better Watch Their Backs"). WATCHING YOU EVERYWHERE? Still, the flap over RFID tags has grabbed headlines across the country. Earlier this year, Albrecht and other privacy advocates badgered Italian retailer Benetton (BNG ) into calling off its RFID trial. Merchandizers say they're flummoxed. They insist the technology is a natural evolution of the bar code, one that will help smooth bumps in the supply chain and cut staff costs. And they say they don't quite know how to deal with Albrecht and privacy advocates who fear the technology's potential. The critics are worried that the tags and the scanners will one day become ubiquitous. "[Our fear is] a global network of millions of receivers along the entire supply chain -- in airports, seaports, highways, distribution centers, warehouses, retail stores -- and in the home," says Albrecht. "Imagine if these chips are in clothes and tires and shoes. Companies could know where you are at any time, anywhere in the world." (For a video interview with Albrecht, see BW Online's Video Views.) Sounds a tad like the futuristic vision presented in last year's Tom Cruise movie Minority Report, where company advertisements were pitched to individuals by name and consumer profile. "THE 5-CENT TAG." However, global identification and tracking on the scale Albrecht envisions isn't yet plausible, except in science fiction. RFID tags cost too much to justify implanting one in every can of soup, pack of razor blades, or Benetton sweater. RFID readers alone can cost thousands of dollars, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Auto-ID Center, which is developing and promoting RFID-powered electronic product codes. Still, Albrecht's concerns aren't just sci-fi. Sophisticated technology is rapidly reducing the costs of RFID technology. Morgan Hill (Calif.)-based Alien Technology (I'm not making that name up. Its motto: Bringing RFID Down To Earth) has developed a process it claims can package tiny integrated circuits for assembly into tracking tags at rates upwards of 2 million per hour (conventional methods allow for about 10,000 per hour). According the Auto-ID Center, "the era of the 5-cent tag is coming." That's why Albrecht's crusade is so important. Her fears may seem extreme and premature, but the earlier consumer concerns are raised, the more they can frame implementation of tracking technology in a way that will never violate privacy.
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