The BBC have reported that the EU (European Union) has finished its investigation into the public's reaction to RFIDs (Radio Frequency Identifiers). In reporting the research the EU Commissioner, Viviane Reding, said that citizens would need reassuring that RFIDs were not going to be used by governments and organisations to mount large scale surveillance.
The EU said a record number of people had contributed to the consultation, this included a survey of 2,190 people and organisations, spread across 25 countries. 55% of the people surveyed thought that new laws should be passed to regulate the use of RFIDs. The EU has said that if new laws are needed they will be drafted in 2007.
Whilst it is nice to see our legislators interested in privacy, I do wonder how well they understand the issues, and whether they will fit it into the context of mobile connectivity and the lack of shyness of the MySpace generation?
Other trends in the use of RFIDs are moving forward at speed with several reports from Hungary of a plan to put a tag on all passengers travelling through Debrecen airport. The idea of the tags is to increase efficiency and security. Presumably terrorists who are happy to bomb innocent civilians are not anti-social enough to avoid the proper use of RFIDs by switching clothing!
Market researchers are interested in RFIDs both for small scale projects such as the fitting of shopping trolleys with tags to enable shopping routes to be tracked, through to the large scale tracking of electronic wave data over time. But RFIDs raise major concerns about informed consent. With devices that are often invisible (due to their size and positoning) the issue of informed consent, and ongoing informed consent can be tricky.
More information about the consultation is available here.
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