I wrote a while back about RFID’s [1], [2] and how they are starting to affect many aspects of our lives. The European Commission’s (EC) Europe’s Information Society has continued to move its RFID investigation along with the closure, yesterday of the final conference on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in the EU. More detailed information on the timetable of this investigation can be found on the EU RFID Consultation Website.
I listened yesterday to some of the conference proceedings – which as a side comment uses some very interesting broadcast / participation technology – however, I was not able to listen to all the conference due to time constraints. Fortunately, the organisers will be setting up an archive of the conference proceedings that you can then review at your own speed, check here in a few days time for that. Also on the same page is other information that the EU believes that we have a right to know about with regards to RFID’s and how they might impact our lives.
The BBC, reported Monday 16th October about EU commissioner Viviane Reding’s concern that “citizens needed re-assuring that radio tags would not lead to large-scale surveillance”.
However, in another story not picked up by the BBC, Silicon.Com reports that all Airline passengers may eventually be RFID tagged to allow for monitoring of there progress through airports!
With the size of RFID’s becoming smaller and smaller (this was in 2004!) on a daily basis, it will soon be impossible to know just how many of these things you have encountered and more to the point, how many you are carrying around on your person, totally unaware. This debate goes on and on…
Other relevant information to this post:-
- Towards an RFID Policy for Europe
- Bookshop tags texts with RFID
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- What happened to RFID’s baggage-tracking boom?
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