Recap

Privacy Invasion

Katherine Albrecht, the founder of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering /nocards.org) was the main guest on Wednesday night. A doctoral candidate at Harvard, Albrecht believes that "retail surveillance" is increasingly invading consumer's privacy.

Albrecht cited the use of grocery store "loyalty cards" as problematic in that they are collecting a great deal of information about purchasers without their awareness. She also mentioned a test by Gillette (which has purchased half-a-billion RFID chips) of "smart shelves" in which a hidden camera snaps a picture of a customers' face anytime they pick up one of their products.

She believes these kinds of technologies are on the verge of spinning out of control, and that by bringing attention to them through CASPIAN, safeguards can be put into place to protect consumer's privacy. Albrecht suggested that ultimately a unique identification number based on a person's DNA could come into widespread usage and this she said could be the fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy of 666, the mark of the beast. While Albrecht, is a Christian (her forthcoming video about the prophecy from Revelations is available at endtime.com) she stressed that CASPIAN is a secular organization composed of a broad spectrum of people from all walks of life, who have come together to stand up for their privacy rights.

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Spotlight on: RFID

One of the technologies that tonight's guest, privacy advocate Katherine Albrecht has sounded the alarm about is RFID. Radio frequency identification technology or RFID, involves miniature computerized tags that can be embedded in merchandise. These tags are capable of beaming out specific information such as serial numbers to nearby scanners.

According to a website created by AIM (a data capture association), RFID "is an automatic way to collect product, place, time or transaction data quickly and easily without human intervention or error." The transponder or tag contains a computer chip that derives its energy from a radio signal sent by the scanner, which enables it to send back information that can then be accessed by a central computer.

In a recent piece in Business Week titled "Playing Tag with Shoppers' Anonymity," Albrecht expresses concerns over a possible global network of millions of receivers. "Imagine if these chips are in clothes and tires and shoes. Companies could know where you are at any time, anywhere in the world," she said. But AIM counters these fears, by suggesting that such an elaborate infrastructure to track citizens would have astronomical costs and be highly impractical. Further, they assert that "the data generated from the use of RFID should be private and proprietary and include the same protections on privacy that are currently in place."

--L.L.