Manedwolf
member
And yes, this does apply to guns. Imagine if the brady crowd mandated that all new firearms must have an RFID chip in the reciever and to remove or disable it was a felony. I think it could happen. 
And this is why I like NH...
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Bill aims to slow RFID in its tracks
By PAT HAMMOND
Union Leader Staff
Sunday, Jan. 1, 2006
George Orwell, in his 1949 political novel “1984,” envisioned a society in which the state’s powers were omnipotent and omnipresent.
Readers — usually high school seniors fulfilling a required reading assignment — shuddered over an oft-repeated warning in the novel that “Big Brother,” as the eyes of the state were called, “is watching you.” But we, the younger generation, believed that no such over-arching breach of privacy would ever become a real threat.
Perhaps the Orwell readers were wrong. Technological developments have advanced the science of identifying people and things in invisible ways. For better or for worse, consumers are leaving tracks that are useful to manufacturers and sellers of products who are seeking a database on their buyers.
New Hampshire could be a national leader in consumer privacy protection if legislation endorsed by the House Commerce Committee is adopted this month.
Prompted by worries that developing technologies that use radio waves to identify both physical objects and human beings are gaining popularity in big businesses such as Wal-Mart, House and Senate members have collaborated on the language for what could be the model for legislation of its kind in the nation.
Critics of the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) computer tags by manufacturers or distributors to track the buying habits of people who purchase their products say they may seem benevolent enough now but there’s real potential for misuse down the road .
Defenders of the computer tags — tiny microchips that are embedded into a label attached to the products — say they promote efficiency by enabling retail outlets to maintain up-to-the-minute product inventories and speed up the checkout process for the customer (in some cases, the customer can avoid checking out altogether).
The House Commerce Committee unanimously recommended passage of the bill, HB 203, in the form of an amendment that replaces the wording of the bill with a new version addressing concerns raised in the public hearing.
The bill:
* stipulates that no consumer product or identification document (such as a credit card or ATM card) to which a tracking device has been affixed, may be sold without a label containing a universally accepted symbol. The requirement also applies to packaging of the product.
* requires that identifying labels be affixed to the product or document or its packaging by the entity that implants the tracking device in the product or by the entity that imports products that contain tracking devices.
* prohibits anyone from implanting tracking devices into human beings without the informed consent of either the individual or a legal guardian.
* prohibits the state or any of its political subdivisions from issuing any radio frequency devices to track individuals, with exceptions such as incarcerated prisoners or residents of nursing or assisted-living facilities.
* establishes a commission on the use of tracking devices to study their usage in government and business and monitor their effect on the economy and society.
* puts clout in the law by setting penalties for violations, ranging from misdemeanors to felonies.
Curtis J. Barry, who lobbies for the Retail Merchants Association of New Hampshire, said, “Many of the proposals made in the (original) bill that were onerous and burdensome on retailers were not included in the bill as it now reads, but we still have some concerns about the wording and continue to question the necessity” for the bill.
Fears ‘unfounded’
“The technology is years away from being placed broadly on the item. Right now it’s being used on pallets, for shipping purposes,” Barry said. “Until that time it doesn’t make sense to make laws that apply to something down the road, especially on the state level when laws that apply to products sold nationwide might differ from state to state.”
Barry also argued that many people are now using this technology in their daily lives — in entering a public parking garage, for instance, or using their E-ZPass or MobilExxon SpeedPass.
Barry also noted that a product with a radio frequency chip embedded in it won’t emit a signal unless it receives a signal from a reader that has the same signal and language and has that product already in its database.
“Many of the fears are either unfounded or the sources (of the fears) have gone unchallenged,” Barry said.
“Customers should understand there are many different technologies, RFID or EPC (electronic product code), and their applications will be no different from the way bar codes are done today except they can ID specific products,” Barry said.”
It benefits both the consumers and the retailers, Barry said, by speeding up service at the counter, making for easier recalls and returns, and reducing the occurrences of products being out of stock by assuring quicker replacement of items.
‘Potential for good or evil’
Rep. Neal M. Kurk, R-Weare, was active in the legislation that was originally sponsored by Rep. Howard C. Dickinson, R-Center Conway.
“I wanted to go further,” Kurk said of the amended bill, “but the committee was not of a mind to do it. These devices have great potential for good or evil for society.
“One of the negatives is these could readily be used to track people,” Kurk said. “Michelin is thinking of embedding them in their tires. They (the devices) could tell you if the tires are subject to a recall, and they could be embedded in other auto parts as well.
“But a reader, in a shopping mall, for instance, could track (the computer chip in) somebody’s clothes, and who I am, and offer certain kinds of products,” Kurk said.
Katherine Albrecht is the founder of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering). The New Hampshire native, a doctoral candidate at Harvard, believes that retail surveillance is increasingly invading consumers’ privacy.
“I am pleased with the legislation,” Albrecht said, noting that much of it is based on a model law CASPIAN developed called the “RFID Right to Know Act of 2003” which called for labeling RFID-embedded products and packages.
Albrecht said at least half a dozen states have rejected legislation addressing privacy issues raised by radio frequency technology.
Albrecht said as far as she knows there are no readers in New Hampshire, but there are plans to place them in shelving and floor tiles and to weave them into carpeting and walls so there is no way of detecting them.
Wal-Mart launched the issue last year, Albrecht said, by requiring their top 100 suppliers to use RFID tags on crates and pallets going into Wal-Mart warehouses.
A group of more than 40 privacy organizations called on businesses to levy a voluntary moratorium on the practice of tagging items (as opposed to pallets) and all but Wal-Mart complied, Albrecht said.
“Wal-Mart has a bad track record in its prior use of RFID,” Albrecht said.
For instance, Wal-Mart set up a shelf with a Procter & Gamble lipstick at a Wal-Mart in Broken Arrow, Okla., in 2003, Albrecht said.
When a customer picked up the product, it triggered a picture of the woman interacting with the lipstick, Albrecht said. Proctor and Gamble and Wal-Mart both denied the allegation. “But they used it to spy on shoppers,” Albrecht said. “Wal-Mart has a poor history of using this (technology) in a bad way.
A call to Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters in Arkansas was not returned.
”NCR supplies cash registers for all Wal-Marts,” Albrecht said. “NCR came out with a document on using RFIDs. They described, for example, using RFID tags on things people wear into stores to identify them and then to change the price of the product they were buying by either lowering or raising it, depending on whether they wanted to encourage or discourage the consumer from buying it.
“Like cookies on the computer,” Albrecht said.
“IBM has taken out a patent for the person tracking unit,” Albrecht said, “hiding the RFID readers in the environment. Every object has a serial number. This (chip) would link the serial number with your identity when you pay for the product. Say the product is a shoe. In the future it could pick up that shoe knowing you are wearing it, and track you.”
Albrecht said there is concern that the technology could spread to public areas like sports arenas, elevators and restrooms, to track people.
“We (CASPIAN) identified two unacceptable uses: item-level tagging and to track human beings,” Albrecht said, “and industry is planning to do both.”
“Wal-Mart has basically thumbed its nose on that recommendation,” Albrecht said. “The concern is that Wal-Mart has crossed that item-level line in the sand and has steadfastly refused to acknowledge those threats. The concern is that it is irresponsible and dangerous because it has the potential to track you wherever you go.”
“The concern of the committee,” House Commerce Committee chairman Sheila T. Francouer, R-Hampton, said, “is that we not do anything to stop the beneficial effects but we want to prevent the intruding aspects of the technology.
“It’s a good first step,” Francouer said of the bill, “and to establish a commission is another important first step.”
And this is why I like NH...
--------------------------------------------------------
Bill aims to slow RFID in its tracks
By PAT HAMMOND
Union Leader Staff
Sunday, Jan. 1, 2006
George Orwell, in his 1949 political novel “1984,” envisioned a society in which the state’s powers were omnipotent and omnipresent.
Readers — usually high school seniors fulfilling a required reading assignment — shuddered over an oft-repeated warning in the novel that “Big Brother,” as the eyes of the state were called, “is watching you.” But we, the younger generation, believed that no such over-arching breach of privacy would ever become a real threat.
Perhaps the Orwell readers were wrong. Technological developments have advanced the science of identifying people and things in invisible ways. For better or for worse, consumers are leaving tracks that are useful to manufacturers and sellers of products who are seeking a database on their buyers.
New Hampshire could be a national leader in consumer privacy protection if legislation endorsed by the House Commerce Committee is adopted this month.
Prompted by worries that developing technologies that use radio waves to identify both physical objects and human beings are gaining popularity in big businesses such as Wal-Mart, House and Senate members have collaborated on the language for what could be the model for legislation of its kind in the nation.
Critics of the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) computer tags by manufacturers or distributors to track the buying habits of people who purchase their products say they may seem benevolent enough now but there’s real potential for misuse down the road .
Defenders of the computer tags — tiny microchips that are embedded into a label attached to the products — say they promote efficiency by enabling retail outlets to maintain up-to-the-minute product inventories and speed up the checkout process for the customer (in some cases, the customer can avoid checking out altogether).
The House Commerce Committee unanimously recommended passage of the bill, HB 203, in the form of an amendment that replaces the wording of the bill with a new version addressing concerns raised in the public hearing.
The bill:
* stipulates that no consumer product or identification document (such as a credit card or ATM card) to which a tracking device has been affixed, may be sold without a label containing a universally accepted symbol. The requirement also applies to packaging of the product.
* requires that identifying labels be affixed to the product or document or its packaging by the entity that implants the tracking device in the product or by the entity that imports products that contain tracking devices.
* prohibits anyone from implanting tracking devices into human beings without the informed consent of either the individual or a legal guardian.
* prohibits the state or any of its political subdivisions from issuing any radio frequency devices to track individuals, with exceptions such as incarcerated prisoners or residents of nursing or assisted-living facilities.
* establishes a commission on the use of tracking devices to study their usage in government and business and monitor their effect on the economy and society.
* puts clout in the law by setting penalties for violations, ranging from misdemeanors to felonies.
Curtis J. Barry, who lobbies for the Retail Merchants Association of New Hampshire, said, “Many of the proposals made in the (original) bill that were onerous and burdensome on retailers were not included in the bill as it now reads, but we still have some concerns about the wording and continue to question the necessity” for the bill.
Fears ‘unfounded’
“The technology is years away from being placed broadly on the item. Right now it’s being used on pallets, for shipping purposes,” Barry said. “Until that time it doesn’t make sense to make laws that apply to something down the road, especially on the state level when laws that apply to products sold nationwide might differ from state to state.”
Barry also argued that many people are now using this technology in their daily lives — in entering a public parking garage, for instance, or using their E-ZPass or MobilExxon SpeedPass.
Barry also noted that a product with a radio frequency chip embedded in it won’t emit a signal unless it receives a signal from a reader that has the same signal and language and has that product already in its database.
“Many of the fears are either unfounded or the sources (of the fears) have gone unchallenged,” Barry said.
“Customers should understand there are many different technologies, RFID or EPC (electronic product code), and their applications will be no different from the way bar codes are done today except they can ID specific products,” Barry said.”
It benefits both the consumers and the retailers, Barry said, by speeding up service at the counter, making for easier recalls and returns, and reducing the occurrences of products being out of stock by assuring quicker replacement of items.
‘Potential for good or evil’
Rep. Neal M. Kurk, R-Weare, was active in the legislation that was originally sponsored by Rep. Howard C. Dickinson, R-Center Conway.
“I wanted to go further,” Kurk said of the amended bill, “but the committee was not of a mind to do it. These devices have great potential for good or evil for society.
“One of the negatives is these could readily be used to track people,” Kurk said. “Michelin is thinking of embedding them in their tires. They (the devices) could tell you if the tires are subject to a recall, and they could be embedded in other auto parts as well.
“But a reader, in a shopping mall, for instance, could track (the computer chip in) somebody’s clothes, and who I am, and offer certain kinds of products,” Kurk said.
Katherine Albrecht is the founder of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering). The New Hampshire native, a doctoral candidate at Harvard, believes that retail surveillance is increasingly invading consumers’ privacy.
“I am pleased with the legislation,” Albrecht said, noting that much of it is based on a model law CASPIAN developed called the “RFID Right to Know Act of 2003” which called for labeling RFID-embedded products and packages.
Albrecht said at least half a dozen states have rejected legislation addressing privacy issues raised by radio frequency technology.
Albrecht said as far as she knows there are no readers in New Hampshire, but there are plans to place them in shelving and floor tiles and to weave them into carpeting and walls so there is no way of detecting them.
Wal-Mart launched the issue last year, Albrecht said, by requiring their top 100 suppliers to use RFID tags on crates and pallets going into Wal-Mart warehouses.
A group of more than 40 privacy organizations called on businesses to levy a voluntary moratorium on the practice of tagging items (as opposed to pallets) and all but Wal-Mart complied, Albrecht said.
“Wal-Mart has a bad track record in its prior use of RFID,” Albrecht said.
For instance, Wal-Mart set up a shelf with a Procter & Gamble lipstick at a Wal-Mart in Broken Arrow, Okla., in 2003, Albrecht said.
When a customer picked up the product, it triggered a picture of the woman interacting with the lipstick, Albrecht said. Proctor and Gamble and Wal-Mart both denied the allegation. “But they used it to spy on shoppers,” Albrecht said. “Wal-Mart has a poor history of using this (technology) in a bad way.
A call to Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters in Arkansas was not returned.
”NCR supplies cash registers for all Wal-Marts,” Albrecht said. “NCR came out with a document on using RFIDs. They described, for example, using RFID tags on things people wear into stores to identify them and then to change the price of the product they were buying by either lowering or raising it, depending on whether they wanted to encourage or discourage the consumer from buying it.
“Like cookies on the computer,” Albrecht said.
“IBM has taken out a patent for the person tracking unit,” Albrecht said, “hiding the RFID readers in the environment. Every object has a serial number. This (chip) would link the serial number with your identity when you pay for the product. Say the product is a shoe. In the future it could pick up that shoe knowing you are wearing it, and track you.”
Albrecht said there is concern that the technology could spread to public areas like sports arenas, elevators and restrooms, to track people.
“We (CASPIAN) identified two unacceptable uses: item-level tagging and to track human beings,” Albrecht said, “and industry is planning to do both.”
“Wal-Mart has basically thumbed its nose on that recommendation,” Albrecht said. “The concern is that Wal-Mart has crossed that item-level line in the sand and has steadfastly refused to acknowledge those threats. The concern is that it is irresponsible and dangerous because it has the potential to track you wherever you go.”
“The concern of the committee,” House Commerce Committee chairman Sheila T. Francouer, R-Hampton, said, “is that we not do anything to stop the beneficial effects but we want to prevent the intruding aspects of the technology.
“It’s a good first step,” Francouer said of the bill, “and to establish a commission is another important first step.”
