A post by Pat
On yesterday’s show, Tammy talked about the privacy concerns over RFID tags in retail merchandise.
RFID is a boon for inventory control and that may be the primary interest for commercial enterprises—for now. Invasion of privacy using technology can happen even without sinister intent. For example, someone had the bright idea for a novel prize giveaway that gave away more than a prize. It gave away where you live. Unilever in Brazil is embedding a GPS chip in a limited number of laundry detergent boxes. The gimmick is that a team will track the lucky winning consumers home and present them with a pocket video camera. It’s part of their “Dirt is Good” promotion.
Brazil has a high crime rate so being followed home or having strangers knocking on the door may not be well received. Just in case the prize winner doesn’t come to the door, there is a note inside the box and a buzzer which will be remotely activated to get the consumer’s attention. This part of the scheme is a hoot as far as I’m concerned. I think it would be fun to hunt down a mystery buzzer in a soap box and find a note. They wouldn’t even have to give me the prize. The experience would be a treasure. It wouldn’t be so much fun if the idea caught on. You could have a traffic jam in front of your house after every shopping trip and buzzers going off in every room of the house.
This is a lunatic idea but at least there’s a benign motivation behind it. Just like using RFID for inventory control. Having products you’ve purchased give away your location or any other personal information is a really bad idea. It’s an invasion of privacy no matter who you are and especially so if, for you, dirt is not good.
Is Your Detergent Stalking You?
Unilever’s Omo detergent is adding an unusual ingredient to its two-pound detergent box in Brazil: a GPS device that allows its promotions agency Bullet to track shoppers and follow them to their front doors.
…consumers who buy one of the GPS-implanted detergent boxes will be surprised at home, given a pocket video camera as a prize and invited to bring their families to enjoy a day of Unilever-sponsored outdoor fun. The promotion, called Try Something New With Omo, is in keeping with the brand’s international “Dirt is Good” positioning that encourages parents to let their kids have a good time even if they get dirty.
Fernando Figueiredo, Bullet’s president, said the GPS device is activated when a shopper removes the detergent carton from the supermarket shelf. Fifty Omo boxes implanted with GPS devices have been scattered around Brazil, and Mr. Figueiredo has teams in 35 Brazilian cities ready to leap into action when a box is activated. The nearest team can reach the shopper’s home “within hours or days,” and if they’re really close by, “they may get to your house as soon as you do,” he said.
“Anything can happen,” Mr. Figueiredo said. “We have to be innovative, but we don’t know what reaction to expect from consumers.”
We have too many rings around the collar already compromising our privacy.
Actually, Pat, you are giving us the ROSY side of the problem.
Pat_S is perched on that soapbox again, working herself into yet another lather. At least she didn’t play the race card by separating the whites from the rest of the dirty laundry that was aired. There was no attempt to soften the fabric of this argument – we’ve been soaked and dragged through the ringer and the grease spot has been Shouted-out. We look forward to that “April Fresh” feeling in November when the TIDE will turn for ALL Americans. Nice post Pat. Rinse and Repeat.
🙂
My company has been working with this technology for a couple of years. For inventory tracking it is a useful tool. We can load a truck, “ping” the truck and instantly know that the truck’s contents are accounted for, and the load is correct. No missing items, no accidental substitutions. The truck’s BL is verified, and tracked across the country. It matches when it leaves the dock, and when it arrives at the customer’s dock. No theft en route. No need to count each box.
Most of the tags for actual products are external and removeable. They can be zapped as soon as they are paid for at the purchase point. What I disagree with is the idea of imbedded tags. Ostensibly, they could be useful for lifecycle tracking, warranty tracking and service cycle tracking. I asked a vendor what would keep a thief from taking inventory of your household goods? He said: “Practically nothing”. There are some safeguards on the reading equipment, but they can all be hacked. That’s part of the delay in the so called “Real-I.D.” Hackers have sucessfully cloned (read) I.D. chips remotely. They can ping your card, use a cell phone to take your picture, and create a duplicate I.D. in a couple of hours. Hackers and abuses may be the best weapon to prevent this technology from becoming a “mark of the beast”. Numerous religious writers have been predicting that RFID’s smaller than a grain of rice will be imbedded in newborns in the future. The technolgy exists right now. People have to understand the implications fully. “Minority Report” comes to mind, where as soon as you walk into a store it knows everything you use and hits you with sale offers, or some goverment goon with access want’s to know where the hot secretary spends her nights and weekends.