The Glass Half Full on RFID

Filed in archive Privacy and Security on June 2, 2006

RFID is like the character PigPen in the Peanuts comic strip.

PigPen has a little dirt cloud that follows him around all the time. RFID has a cloud following it, too, except that instead of dirt, RFID is followed around by a cloud of negative public opinion. Somehow this opinion has attached itself to the technology -- and is proving difficult to shake off.

Mostly this negative opinion comes from not understanding RFID technology -- and by focusing solely on the negative aspects. You can focus on the negative of anything -- or you can choose to focus on the positive.

Mini Singh writes at RFID Lowdown about taking a balanced view toward RFID, noting that people should be proactive with lawmakers and tell them to limit it.

I agree that balance is in order.

I would say, though, that balance starts with each of us as individuals. It is up to us to be realistic and informed about RFID. Three things I recommend:

• Let's take individual responsibility for keeping an open mind and becoming informed about the positives of RFID. Let's not speak with half-knowledge because we think we understand even if we really do not. That just leads to sensationalized news reports and misinformation.

• Let's also measure RFID fairly against other technologies. When we concern ourselves with something we consider a negative of RFID, let's compare it with another technology in use today and see if the threat is truly any greater.
  
  For instance, when we talk about RFID credit cards, let's compare those with non-RFID cards. What exactly is the risk of identity theft? Does the writer understand the laws that limit the consumer's liability in the case of use of a stolen card? Or what about the potential for bad guys to fraudulently clone credit cards? Are we really any worse off because a card has RFID, than we are with a magnetic strip credit card? We can theorize all day long about what happens IF someone steals my RFID card, and IF someone uses it fraudulently, but what is the consumer's liability and is it any greater just because RFID is involved? The answer is a big fat "NO" but few people take the time to understand the laws concerning consumer liability and the policies of the financial institutions and the realities about how gangs work to steal credit cards and identities.

• And if it is the Big Brother aspect that concerns you, then you are going after the wrong target. The target should be the databases of information about us as individuals that already exist. Believe me, I am way more worried about the information that insurance companies and financial institutions and marketers and the IRS and Google have about me in their databases already, than I am about some RFID tag hanging on a shirt.

PigPen image courtesy of UnitedMedia.com.