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Resolving the
Right to Privacy in a RFID World
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Remember when television first
came out, and children were not allowed to sit directly in front of the set
for fear of radiation. Remember the City
of San Francisco's attempts to regulate exposure to radiation from PC
monitors. And concern about radio waves impact on the brain is still an
unresolved issue relative to cellphones. But somehow, consumer activists have not had material
impact in the deployment of TVs, microwaves, PCs, and cellphones. When it
comes to RFID, the story may be very different. The emphasis is not on challenging
the safety of the technology, but rather a perceived danger of a nightmarish
invasion to one's privacy from RFID deployment. In the Quixotic pursuit of
protection of individual privacy, the
anti-RFID consumer activists clearly are well organized. Their organizational
prowess, coupled with incredible mis-understanding about RFID, threatens to
do serious damage to the evolution of the technology. Their effectiveness is
manifested in their seeking legislation to halt the use of RFID in everything
from passports to clothing. Attempts to legislate a moratorium and worse
almost succeeded in California. Only a veto by the Governor has reigned
in the recent attempts. But,
persistence is still likely to pay off.
To resolve the real and perceived invasion of privacy
dangers posed by the deployment of RFID technology, one first had best look
at the big picture. To look at the transformation our civilization is
undergoing, and then paradoxically use a
de-magnifier to zoom in, within a big picture context, to find ways to come to terms with the
conflict between individual rights and the economic and social imperatives of
an automated society. The Big Picture – The Economic
Imperatives Driving RFID Deployment In the long run, communications
technology is the eventual, unstoppable equalizer of the economic disparity
among nations, leading to affording
each individual a joyous standard of
living unknown by our collective ancestors. Ironically, the very process of
moving to such a desirable goal of worldwide economic stabilization threatens
to create serious and prolonged economic dislocations for the developed and
democratic countries that have already achieved economic success compared to
that of the undeveloped nations. This is a danger that developed countries
can only deal with by holding their own against the undeveloped nations in
the worldwide race to apply the technology of electronic communications to
each nation’s commercial structure. And whether or not one looks at RFID as a
communications medium, it fundamentally is one, and the one that will be
pivotal as to which countries have a respectable showing in this race toward
economic stabilization. Surprisingly, this is a race
where the characteristically less democratic undeveloped countries have a
winning edge since they are unfettered by concepts such as individual privacy
rights. The unavoidable reality is
that on the road to quality-of-life equalization among all persons of the
world, a stiff price will be extracted. Individual privacy rights, as most
would define them, will have to be sacrificed. As distasteful as such a
thought may be, it is an inescapable reality of a networked civilization
that, by its very nature, ultimately will bring economic parity among all
nations. While this price will be extracted whether or not RFID is deployed,
the quality-of-life in developed countries could be seriously eroded without
its deployment. On first blush, one might
think it is preposterous that the undeveloped countries of the world could
pose a serious economic threat to the developed countries. But on close examination the threat is shown to be
real, and quite sobering. Until recently, the manufacturing cost advantage
due to the low wages that undeveloped countries enjoy, compared to the wage
structure of developed nations, was mostly offset by the inefficiencies of
production in undeveloped countries. Thus, media hype to the contrary, there
is a tenuous balance between the low
wages/low productivity of undeveloped nations and the high wages/high
productivity of developed nations. One may well argue whether
the balance tips one way or another, but from its effect on employment, there
is a pragmatic balance. For example, using 2002 statistics, one can note that
if the wage cost for a unit interval
of work in the USA is set at $100,
the wage cost for that same unit interval of work in China is $2. But when
one adjusts for productivity in manufacturing a like product, the disparity
is not that great. On a productivity-adjusted basis, the $100 wage cost in
the USA is comparable to a productivity-adjusted wage cost of $77 in China.
While still a disparity that favors the underdeveloped country, the gap is
not so large that the developed country is unable to overcome the handicap by
being very selective in its competitive stance. Thus, as tenuous as the current situation is, the economies of
the developed nations can remain healthy – no matter how lopsided the trade
balances of individual nations. But, in our USA-China
example, it would not take much for China to use automation to improve
productivity. And if wage growth were minimized at the same time, that
productivity-adjusted $23 advantage that China currently has over the USA
could rapidly, and easily, be enlarged to $50 or more. Definitely a gap too
large for any nation, the USA included, to overcome competitive-wise. So, were the productivity of
undeveloped nations to rise dramatically faster than their wage scale, the
productivity-adjusted wage cost disparity would become so wide that this
tenuous balance would become unhinged, and the collective economies of
developed nations would face the disaster of ever escalating unemployment
that couldn’t possibly be corrected by accelerating the shift to service
industries. Conceivably, the disaster could last for decades until
equilibrium in productivity-adjusted wage cost is reached. There is every indication
that the undeveloped nations understand the economic advantages that having
productivity grow faster than wages can bring to their nations. Thus, the
undeveloped nations’ past practice of deliberately resisting automation on
the premise that it was a better social policy to employ more of its
unemployed, no matter how inefficient the practice might be, is giving way to
striving for productive advantage. The evolving policy is to foster
productivity improvements slowly, while, with premeditative intent,
contain the rate of wage scale growth. Thus, since the developed
countries clearly are not able to reduce their wage scales, they have no
choice but to seek any and all ways to maintain productivity advantage until
the wage scales of undeveloped nations gain parity with those of developed
nations. Arguably, the level of
further “manufacturing processes” productivity gains that developed countries
can wring out of their manufacturing operations cannot be sufficient to match
the productivity gains that the undeveloped nations can achieve once they
decide to automate on a big scale. Thus, the developed countries have to find
other ways to improve productivity. One place that especially lends itself to
productivity improvement is the structure of the distribution component of
the supply chain. Specifically, the means by which goods are handled from the
moment the manufactured goods leave the manufacturing facility until the
goods are in the hands of the consumer. Restructuring the supply
chain distribution links for productivity gains is precisely what is being
attempted at this point in time.
Specifically, a major structural overhaul of the supply chain processes and procedures is in progress. One manifestation of this
structural overhaul is the closing of secondary, and in some cases primary,
distribution centers. And in their place, erecting distribution way stations
at the shipping point of entry into a nation. The ports of entry increasingly are being viewed as the
docking facilities for “floating warehouses”. Warehouses whose destinations are determined in mid-ocean
based on the dynamics of real-time changes in replenishment requirements,
instead of leaving such determination to land-based distribution centers with
less re-routing flexibility.
Concurrently, the striving is to replace multiple tiers of brick and
mortar distribution centers with a fewer number of super distribution
centers, and to use mobile (trailers
and planes) distribution centers to deliver directly to the points of sale.
The resulting savings in brick and mortar and distribution center personnel
are, and will continue to be, substantial. And a good portion of the savings
can be used to offset the eventual productivity gains of products from lower
wage nations. A not inconsequential
benefit from this supply chain optimization is that the in-nation
manufacturing fabricators gain the benefit of lower costs associated with
receiving foreign built components required for their fabrication operations
via increasingly cost-reduced supply chain distribution
mechanisms.. One critical technology that
the supply chain optimization programs must rely upon is RFID technology. For
the sought after optimization is heavily dependent on the ability to know
where goods are throughout the supply chain at any and every point in time.
The more links in the supply chain (of distribution centers) that are
eliminated, the more urgent the need for highly granular visibility of the
goods moving around the supply chain. Not just what quantity of an item is located where, but how much of the
item is available and able to be
redirected in immediate response to ever changing replenishment requirements
of all the point of sale outlets that are
the last link in the supply chain. Granularity is all
important. It is essential to be able to qualify goods according to relevant
metrics – size, color, sub-models, expiration dates, etc. And, when
necessary, to have details about the item’s environmental handling. Was the
temperature of the item maintained within a specified range? Was the fragile
item exposed to too rough handling? Was the integrity of the tamper-proof
seal violated? Etc. Finally,
especially for high-value items, there must be the ability to uniquely
identify and authenticate a specific individual item among a batch of like
items. Beyond the needed granular visibility in the movement of
goods to their final point of sale,
granular visibility is also required within the point of sale location
to assure proper stocking and replenishment thereof. Finally, for a growing
number of goods, there is a striving to optimize post-sales service support
for items requiring servicing.
Depending upon the nature of the item, optimization in this case
requires being able to monitor how the item is used, its environmental exposures,
and its maintenance service history.
All information that minimizes the amount of human effort required to
service the item. Bar codes can’t perform what
is required for “cradle-to-grave” supply chain optimization. To accomplish the required objective, the use of RFID is essential. RFID in the
form of passive and active tags, many times with integrated sensors, is what
is required. But the tags themselves are useless without the deployment of
the proper RFID infrastructure. Just as Wi-Fi in a laptop is useless if there
is not a Wi-Fi infrastructure in place, with an Access Point that is within
range of the laptop, RFID tags are useless without an appropriate tag Reader
infrastructure. We took a long time to get
to the overriding point. But it is an important point. Undeveloped countries
will deploy RFID to gain a productivity advantage as far ahead of the growth
in their wage scale as possible. And developed countries must deploy RFID to
remain economically viable until the wages and productivity of all nations
come into balance. Thus, overt opposition to the use of RFID, for whatever
reason, puts the developed nations at serious economic risk. There is no doubt that the
economic imperative is a force behind the deployment of RFID that is too
powerful to stop. Privacy issues may cause the deployment to be stopped
temporarily within a given nation, or
cause the deployment to have to live with punitive restrictions, but
ultimately the social and political effect will push away any roadblock – and
ultimately undo any self-flagellating restrictions. In light of this, are we
saying that economic imperatives trump privacy rights? The answer is that such a question
emanates from an erroneous presumption that doesn’t understand what has
happened already. A question that suggests an under-appreciation for the big
picture perspective of our new paradigm networked world. Privacy
Rights & RFID Except for the most recent
new-born members of our civilization, from our very existence we have been
instilled with a belief to a right to privacy. We are not talking just about
such rights bestowed by any set of
laws, but also from an innate belief that is woven into our collective
genetic make-up. A perspective that
makes perfectly understandable the anti-RFID tag concerns of consumer
advocates. Understandable, even though the concerns translate into demands
that show an alarming level of ignorance about the technology, and that will
do little to protect against the true invasion of privacy that already
exists. Demands that have led tag suppliers to provision their tags with a
“kill command” – the capability to
instruct the tag to destroy its electronics, thus reducing the tag to a mess
of useless sand and plastic just before the tagged object leaves the retail
establishment. Of course, the typical consumer will not be able to determine
if the tag was or was not killed. And the “kill” process prevents the tags
from being used for post-sales purposes that the consumer would deem
desirable for certain kinds of products.
While it is understandable
why nations, such as the UK, made it
mandatory for retailers to inform the
consumer anytime a RFID tag is attached to a piece of merchandise, the net
effect is to delay employment of RFID at the item level – where it will do
the most good. It is no accident that UK-based retailer Tesco, using a flimsy
excuse about technical issues, has put its item level RFID deployment on
hold. Ditto for Germany’s Metro Group. The losses due to such a delay accrue
to their customers as well as to the retailer. Once implemented, the customer
would experience fewer instances of
out-of-stock situations, and ultimately would reap lower cost of goods
due to the efficiencies that RFID would produce for these retailers. No matter how well intended are
the anti-RFID advocacy groups, they are exhibiting a naivete about the world
that communications technology has thrust upon us all. By the beginning of
this century, almost all of civilized mankind had been linked together by a
maze of fiber and radio waves that incessantly switch discrete packets of
information among our collective minds. Packets that, many times, are forced
upon us whether we want them or not.
Packets broadcasting information
widely ranging in value to the
individual. Information, some of which is welcomed, and most of which is
un-welcomed. And all too much of which is disturbing and offensive to our
sensibilities. And relative to our subject, all too many times violates the
rudiments of privacy anyone can rightly expect to be accorded. And as time
goes by, all of the populace will have to endure seeing their personal
information available to everyone. Persons will have to endure the
aggravation of having no ability to edit and/or eradicate details about their
personal information. Yet, we all know that there is no way to sever this web
of information that mankind has woven into the public record of our times.
Even attempts by governments can only be temporary in their effects. The
stark reality is that, in this 21st
century world, the concept of privacy rights is passé. The right to
privacy has become a victim of the networked world that technology has
erected for civilization. If the reader has recoiled at the thought, or has
uttered, “No way am I going to surrender my privacy right”, let’s use our
de-magnifier and underscore the
assertion that the rights have already been abandoned – whether we like it or
not. If there is any doubt, one
need only open one’s browser and Google one’s own name — using each of the major search engines. The chances are very high
that one will be shocked by details of a personal nature that have been
made available for anyone to see.
Details being disseminated throughout the planet (any attempt by individual
governments to outlaw such access to one’s information notwithstanding.) In the USA, much has been
made about the government and corporations obtaining, without warrants, the
phone records of individuals for purposes that range from seeking protection
from terrorist attacks to uncovering persons who leaked confidential or
sensitive information to the press. Leaks that can alter destinies of
corporations, of politicians, and even a nation. Justifiable or not, the
point is that one’s phone records are no more private than the details about
one that appear on the Internet. And the same applies for the content of
one’s phone calls, especially when the call is a cellphone call. Then, there are instances
when we readily give up a level of privacy because it is in our own economic
interests. We allow, actually encourage, supermarkets to track details about
our purchases in return for discounts too generous to refuse in the name of
privacy. And when it comes to our health, we willingly ignore that a health
organization has a record of minutiae about our physical conditions,
infirmities, diseases, mental
aberrations, due dates for inoculations/checkups, etc. We accept this knowing
that persons in the health community other than our doctors will have access to the information. We
surrender our right to privacy in order to assure the best level of
maintenance of our very existence. Then there are the incidents
where we are forced, by law, to surrender privacy. Despite laws to the
contrary, in recent times there has
been evidence of top administrative
branch leaders of the USA government (illegally) tapping into tax records and
FBI records of individuals for purposes of
influencing the individual’s actions. The point here is that, rights
or not, laws to the contrary or not, in a networked world, privacy is not
something we can expect to be honored anytime governmental leaders wish to
violate the very laws they created. Our credit history is so
readily available that the potential
misuse of the information is formidable. So easy is it to engage in identity
theft, to obtain credit in another person’s name, that governments are
passing laws to allow persons to instruct credit checking agencies to freeze
their credit information – effectively preventing anyone, including
themselves, from obtaining credit without presenting information known only
to the agency and the individual. Many of us willingly allow
an automobile tracking service to track our vehicle no matter where we roam.
The trade-off is that, in the event of an accident, the automobile’s communications system can call for help,
giving the responder the coordinates of one’s location. And many a parent, for all
the right reasons, has stripped their
child of privacy in the form of cellphones that can track the child’s
whereabouts. Of course, the parent is subject to the same trackability by
governmental authorities. Then there is no denying the
level of privacy that has been trampled upon by security concerns. Security
cameras in public places are becoming as common as trees in a park. Increasingly,
access to buildings and offices requires recordation of the identity of the
individual seeking access. The airport experience requires no elaboration.
And the ubiquitous credit/debit card doubles as a tracer of all too many of
our activities. Some who recognize the
reality of “privacy lost” note that, if one has done nothing wrong, then
there should be no concern with
having details of their lives
available to anyone. They argue that
the sheer collective volume of data about all persons is itself a shield of
privacy. But what is meant by “having
done nothing wrong” is a subjective matter. Invariably, there will be some
persons defining "wrong" in a way that would transform seemingly innocent personal information
into unfair stigmas, or even put the
person in legal jeopardy. And
breathes there anyone who would not just as soon bury some misstep taken in
one’s formative years? When it comes to RFID, the
additional assault this technology can make on our already lost privacy is
precious little, and is insignificant compared to the advantages the
technology offers to the individual – well beyond its role in the economic
race. Details of such advantages are
best reserved for a separate discussion. Enough to say that the advantages of
having visibility into the nature and status of tagged objects, animals, and
yes, humans, will prove to be too essential in a world where humans are
increasingly obliged to transact business with machines instead of with other
humans. A necessary trade-off to reap living standards that are far more
precious than a 20th century perception of what should be treated as private
information to be restricted from view by the masses. (We will leave it to the philosophers to
expound on whether such a life is really better than what came before.) Once there is full
appreciation that today’s concept of privacy rights has become obsolete by
the collective communications technologies, effective ways to minimize this
collateral damage can be sought. In Pursuit of Restoring Some of The Privacy Lost
Now! Having faced reality,
what of our lost privacy can we salvage? We’ll suggest enough to make the
salvage effort worthwhile. Let’s start with privacy
concerns over RFID. First order of business is to give everyone an understanding
as to just what RFID, as a communications medium, is all about. It is the
“what”, not necessarily the “how”, of the technology that has to be
understood. For only with such understanding can meritorious protections be
devised. Unfortunately, all too many
consumer advocates display a distressing lack of knowledge about what RFID
technology can and cannot do. Because of this, the protectionist paths they
attempt to travel down not only will not accomplish their objective, but make
them look downright silly. A circumstance that denies them credibility among
persons who would otherwise be supportive of their objectives. A circumstance
that denies them the ability to determine what fights to pick, and which ones
to abandon. We will make a bet. Once
consumer advocates, those of honorable intent, truly understand what RFID
technology can and cannot do, they will rapidly come to a string of
conclusions that may well transform the concept of “right to privacy” to a
concept of “right to personal authentication”.
The right to structure the technology to make sure that any action taken in
one’s name is actually the action of the person him/herself, and not the
action of an identity rogue. And
secondarily, that adequate privacy protection can be achieved by insisting
that, where necessary, all reading and writing to RFID tags be encased in sufficient encryption
to minimize unwanted eavesdropping. For RFID, such a goal makes more sense
than chasing what in this day and age have to be considered phantom privacy
violations. Such as imagining that goods purchased with tags attached, when
brought into the home, could be used to spy on the individual. But for the real and
insufferable unauthorized mini-biographies and personal e-mail thefts that
are truly Internet violations of our privacy, the answer is to thwart such
practices by every legal and lobbying means possible. Fix this big picture
communications privacy problem, and the resolution will trickle down to the
little communications medium that is RFID. In the meantime, keep in mind the
economic importance of deploying RFID as fast as possible. . |
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