Privacy concerns surface at CeBIT RFID debate

Grok Headline matches for Privacy concerns surface at CeBIT RFID debate

Needs for Standards, Privacy Top RFID
Concerns

Needs for Standards, Privacy Top RFID
Concerns 09/16/2004 07:01 PM
The technology also must become available at an affordable cost, and RFID doesn't tell officials screening for terrorist activities what's "inside the box."

RFID policy panel raises privacy
concerns

RFID policy panel raises privacy
concerns 04/06/2005 08:53 PM
Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has many current and future benefits, but U.S. policymakers need to be aware of potential privacy and security problems of the rapidly evolving technology, a privacy advocate and a security expert said Wednesday.

RFID and privacy: Debate heating up in
Washington

RFID and privacy: Debate heating up in
Washington 05/28/2004 03:33 PM
WASHINGTON - Privacy advocates and some lawmakers are pushing a debate over potential privacy abuses from the growing use of radio frequency identification chips as huge retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. move toward large-scale use of the technology.

AOL Responds to AIM Privacy Concerns

AOL Responds to AIM Privacy Concerns 03/14/2005 04:41 PM
Changes made to the terms of service for AOL Instant Messenger raised a hubbub last week among Internet bloggers who claimed AOL had stealthily added provisions that infringe upon the privacy of its users. In response, AOL has provided some answers to extinguish the fire by dismissing the "mistaken rumors" as being false.

DNA Fingerprint Privacy Concerns

DNA Fingerprint Privacy Concerns 09/08/2004 06:30 PM
CBS News Sep 8 2004 10:04PM GMT

Power of Privacy Concerns

Power of Privacy Concerns 05/15/2004 09:38 PM

I used to think that privacy concerns in America was strong enough to thwart ideas like single-signin and Gmail from being realized.  My study of the social networking phenomenon have gradually changed my opinion to a point where I now think the power of privacy concerns can be dispelled with the right strategy.  Obviously, this can't be done by just anyone and serious commitments must be made in terms of time and resources, but I now believe it can be done.

I have come to realize that concerns are temporal in nature and requires constant reinforcements to maintain them.  A primary source of that reinforcement is social pressures.  If people around you are concerned, you become concerned.  If they seem unconcerned, level of your concern diminishes.  People who do not conform to the group's level of concerns are pushed to the fringe and eventually casted out, either by the group or by their own choice.

RFID Blocker Tag concerns

RFID Blocker Tag concerns 03/06/2004 02:01 AM
I asked Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to comment on last week's RFID Blocker Tag demo by RSA at the RSA conference. (Tien spoke about this last night at a session organized by the San Francisco Public Library.)...

Google Ignores Privacy Concerns

Google Ignores Privacy Concerns 02/18/2003 07:56 AM
This entry in the Google Weblog points to this list of privacy problems. These concerns are not new. The lack of response from Google about this issue is disappointing but somewhat expected. My concern is mostly with the potential for future data-mining. How can this be thwarted?

Privacy Concerns Moving Into The
Mainstream

Privacy Concerns Moving Into The
Mainstream 08/09/2004 09:55 AM

Are There Privacy Concerns In The Home
Of The Future?

Are There Privacy Concerns In The Home
Of The Future? 05/13/2004 12:29 PM
South Korea is known for its widespread adoption of broadband and wireless technologies. Many tech companies in the US like to use South Korea as a testbed, since they believe the US is likely to follow a similar path to South Korea rather than some place like Japan. Now, Michael Kanellos is taking a look at the South Korean effort to make the "connected home of the future" available today. It includes plenty of connected appliances, screens everywhere, RFID chips that monitor things and even a well connected car. The bathroom contains a connected health monitor (want to send your latest data to the doctor?) and flat screens so you can read the latest news. Kanellos is worried about the privacy implications of all of this - but doesn't seem to indicate what they are. Folks in South Korea don't seem all that worried - they just want the technology to be available sooner (and for less money). In fact, it's not entirely clear from the article what the privacy implications really are. There's some vague talk about RFID (which seems to have become universally associated with "privacy risk" for no clear reason) and some worries about hackers accessing your grocery bill. Of course, for those who already shop online there are the same risks. Really, all this is doing is putting more data online - which is always a risk - but it's a choice that people can make in exchange for the benefits of the features in such a system. If anything, hopefully trends like this will spur better security and data protection techniques. However, immediately tossing out the house of the future as a privacy risk, without explaining where the real risk is, doesn't make much sense.

Google-Mail privacy concerns

Google-Mail privacy concerns 04/24/2004 07:56 PM
p2pnet.net Apr 25 2004 0:42AM GMT

ACLU Reacts to Privacy Concerns

ACLU Reacts to Privacy Concerns 12/02/2003 04:58 PM

AOL Answers Privacy Concerns in AIM Beta

AOL Answers Privacy Concerns in AIM Beta 04/16/2004 03:55 PM

Congress Airs RFID Concerns

Congress Airs RFID Concerns 07/18/2004 11:46 PM
RFID proponents insist that the tracking tags will be used to improve supply chains and not to track individual sales items or the people buying them.

Tracking tech raises privacy concerns

Tracking tech raises privacy concerns 04/06/2005 05:29 PM
ZDNet Apr 6 2005 9:08PM GMT

Suits Against Airline Put Focus on
Privacy Concerns

Suits Against Airline Put Focus on
Privacy Concerns 01/22/2004 02:08 PM
The cases brought against Northwest Airlines for handing over passenger information to the government have put the spotlight on a murky area of privacy law in the United States.

Google's Gmail stirs up privacy concerns

Google's Gmail stirs up privacy concerns 04/16/2004 04:55 AM
IT-Analysis.com Apr 16 2004 9:23AM GMT

Camera Phones, Privacy Concerns Not
Clicking

Camera Phones, Privacy Concerns Not
Clicking 11/03/2003 02:36 PM
Los Angeles Times Nov 3 2003 1:48PM ET

California may block Gmail over privacy
concerns

California may block Gmail over privacy
concerns 04/13/2004 04:42 AM
ZDNet UK Apr 13 2004 8:07AM GMT

Google's memory stirs privacy concerns

Google's memory stirs privacy concerns 06/05/2005 11:18 PM
Sydney Morning Herald Jun 6 2005 3:34AM GMT

Internet mapping raises privacy concerns

Internet mapping raises privacy concerns 01/04/2004 08:19 PM
Internet mapping services are powerful and simple: Type a phone number into Google or other sites for a map with door-to-door directions. ...

CeBIT Buzzing with RFID Technology
Debuts

CeBIT Buzzing with RFID Technology
Debuts 04/09/2004 04:09 PM
eWeek Mar 22 2004 11:30AM GMT

Amazon risks privacy concerns with new
search website

Amazon risks privacy concerns with new
search website 04/15/2004 07:42 AM
Computer Shopper Apr 15 2004 12:34PM GMT

Plans for Wireless Directory Raise
Concerns About Privacy

Plans for Wireless Directory Raise
Concerns About Privacy 01/26/2004 02:24 AM
After last year's campaigns against spammers and telemarketers, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are poised to tackle the next privacy frontier: the nation's 150 million wireless phones.

California group sues Albertson's over
privacy concerns

California group sues Albertson's over
privacy concerns 09/10/2004 04:30 PM
A California-based privacy advocacy group is suing supermarket giant Albertson's over alleged privacy violations involving its pharmacy customers.

Google mail's features outweigh
privacy concerns

Google mail's features outweigh
privacy concerns 06/02/2004 06:31 PM
Kentucky.com,KY-23 minutes agoGoogle's free e-mail service has been derided as an obnoxious privacy invasion that will suck up vast amounts of user data and deposit information into a ...

MATRIX Database Schema Altered Due to
Privacy Concerns

MATRIX Database Schema Altered Due to
Privacy Concerns 07/24/2004 02:43 PM

Ruling on E-Mail Interception Raises
Privacy Concerns

Ruling on E-Mail Interception Raises
Privacy Concerns 06/30/2004 10:32 PM
In an online eavesdropping case with potentially profound implications, a federal appeals court ruled it was acceptable for an ISP that offered e-mail service to surreptitiously track its subscribers' messages.

RFID Privacy

RFID Privacy 12/29/2003 11:56 PM

RFID News has an excellent analysis of a recent USA Today column on hypothetical nightmarish privacy violations by companies utilizing RFID tags. The gist of the analysis is that USA Today is sensationalizing the concept. Companies, governments, and individuals already have far easier and more effective ways of gathering information about you than RFID can provide.

One example of the "sky is falling" reporting is their scenario of marketers watching what you are interested in:

A department store’s RFID system recognizes that you’re carrying an item you bought there last week. Now it knows who you are. And if there are readers scattered about, it knows where you’re going. Come home to a phone call, "Mr. Kantor, we noticed you were shopping for a television…"

Retailers are smarter than that. They tend to avoid behavior that consumers are going to find creepy. When I worked for a telecomunications company I found that when someone called our call center, the systems automatically looked up the phone number of the incoming call (this was before caller ID was popular or widespread), looked up the corresponding account, and displayed the account details on the operator’s screen.

They had initially experimented with answering the phone, "Thank you for calling us Mr. Johnson. How can we help you today?" Callers understandably found this a little spooky, so the operators began answering the phone as if they had no idea who was on the other end.

If a retailer were to use RFID or any other method of identification to discover who was browsing for what products, they would likely use this information in a way that was much less overt. Email offers sent would magically include deals on products that the consumer was interested in. Direct mail would be targeted with products that a large number of people in a particular zip code had shown interest in.

It’s also important to note that, at this point at least, most companies don’t have their databases integrated to the point that they can target marketing in this method. Retailers spend billions of dollars on products that don’t sell, merchandising that doesn’t work, and marketing that falls flat. Many of these companies have the data that could have prevented these problems but are unable to properly analyze it to extract valuable information.

At least right now, that’s what’s going to prevent wholesale intrusions into our privacy—the inefficiencies and ineptitude of corporate data operations. Companies are already drowing in data. Turning that data into useful information is a lot harder than it sounds.

RFID Privacy Gap?

RFID Privacy Gap? 06/10/2004 06:13 PM
InternetNews.com-24 minutes ago ... to take charge of engineering and keep informed of how engineering may affect consumer privacy, according to Nicole Wong, senior compliance counsel for Google. ...

Google mail's flexible features outweigh
privacy concerns

Google mail's flexible features outweigh
privacy concerns 06/06/2004 11:27 AM
CNEWS Jun 6 2004 2:37PM GMT

Google mail's flexible features
outweigh privacy concerns

Google mail's flexible features
outweigh privacy concerns 06/06/2004 06:45 PM
Winnipeg Sun,Canada-10 hours agoGoogle Inc.'s free e-mail service has been derided as an obnoxious privacy invasion that will suck up vast amounts of user data and deposit information into a ...

Ease of online mapping raises privacy,
safety concerns

Ease of online mapping raises privacy,
safety concerns 12/21/2003 07:10 PM
Internet mapping services are powerful and simple: Type a phone number into Google or other sites for a map with door-to-door directions. ...

RFID users say no to privacy law

RFID users say no to privacy law 07/15/2004 07:05 AM
Computer Weekly Jul 15 2004 11:11AM GMT

PRODUCT REVIEW: Google mail's features
outweigh privacy concerns

PRODUCT REVIEW: Google mail's features
outweigh privacy concerns 06/02/2004 06:25 PM
AP via The Ledger Jun 2 2004 10:18PM GMT

E-mail Privacy Debate Heads to Congress

E-mail Privacy Debate Heads to Congress 07/28/2004 10:04 PM
Responding to a recent federal court ruling, a new bill in the House calls for tougher restrictions on the interception of e-mail messages—but its timing may shelve it for now.

RFID Leaders Talk Privacy

RFID Leaders Talk Privacy 05/28/2004 02:10 PM

RFID users say no privacy law needed

RFID users say no privacy law needed 07/14/2004 06:36 PM
WASHINGTON - A U.S. law enforcing privacy rules for RFID (radio frequency identification) isn't needed because companies experimenting with the technology are committed to protecting privacy, two such corporations told a U.S. House subcommittee Wednesday.

Libraries Trying to Protect Privacy in
RFID Environment

Libraries Trying to Protect Privacy in
RFID Environment 10/30/2003 10:19 AM

Vendors Say RFID Doesn't Compromise Privacy

"In comments to the San Francisco Public Library regarding RFID (radio frequency identification) checkout system, Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) commented, 'a 'mandatory kill' policy is the only measure that would allow RFIDs to be used by the library internally, while giving the public the necessary time to consider whether and to what extent they want RFIDs to proliferate.' RFID vendors, however, say that's what's happening. Scott Hackstadt, director of technology, Vernon Library Supplies, said that the only information on the RFID chip is the barcode number of the item and sorting information: 'We have an on-off bit on the tag. If it's been turned off, it can go through the gate. When it's gone, there's no mechanism for the tag to be read when it's out of the building.' " [Library Journal]

I don't blindly believe these claims because I don't work with RFID and can't test them for myself and, well, they're vendor claims. However, I think it's safe to say that of all of the various organizations implementing RFID, libraries are being the most careful and thoughtful about privacy concerns. Hopefully SFPL will continue releasing specific information to address this issue. Has anyone seen confirmations from other libraries that have implemented RFID systems?

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Privacy concerns surface at CeBIT RFID debate

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