Free-Marketers and the RFID Privacy Debate

Filed in archive Privacy and Security on September 19, 2004

More voices are now being heard in the privacy debate over RFID. The Free-Marketers have jumped into the fray.

Sonia Arrison of the Free-Market think tank the Pacific Research Institute, has written an article in TechNewsWorld issuing a wake-up call to the business community about the privacy debate:

"RFID is poised to revolutionize retail and other areas of commerce, but it will only reach its full potential if allowed the flexibility to respond to market demands. If industry insiders don't step up and take on the professional privacy hawks and scheming politicians, we could all lose out on what promises to be an extremely useful technology."

Some of the language in this quote is a little extreme ("scheming"?), but the overall point is close to one I've been making for some time here, here, here, and here. The business community needs to get out in front of the privacy issue.

One of the worst things that could happen to RFID would be a hasty rush to overly-restrictive legislation out of belief that the business community will not self-regulate.