| Author (Person) | McLauchlin, Anna |
|---|---|
| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.12, No.8, 2.3.06 |
| Publication Date | 02/03/2006 |
| Content Type | News |
|
Date: 02/03/06 Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for the information society will next week (9 March) launch a debate on whether the use of identification technology to track consumer goods and people should be regulated at the EU level. At the CeBit information technology trade fair in Hanover, Reding will invite comments on regulating Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), a technology which has aroused the suspicion of data privacy advocates because it can be used by law enforcement agencies and companies to monitor the movement and behaviour of citizens. RFID tags are inserted into objects and use radio frequencies to send data about their identity, location and history. Their use is currently confined largely to following goods along the distribution chain including to the point of sale to consumers, but it has almost unlimited potential to evolve for use in medicines, passports or even animals. The debate will raise issues of data protection and privacy, and the extent to which regulators should intervene with a still-emerging technology. A series of meetings will be held with interested parties between March and June, before the commissioner sets out her regulatory intentions in a Commission communication. According to a study carried out by electronics research group IDTechEx, published in February, the value of the global RFID market will rise to EUR 22.06 billion from EUR 2.28 billion today. Under consideration will be the ethics of the project and how much of this potential market European businesses will be able to tap into. Some European retailers, including Germany�s Metro and the UK�s Tesco, have already begun pilot projects where customers can buy RFID-tagged objects, but there are as yet no widespread applications. Civil libertarians argue that RFID will give both businesses and government the opportunity to spy into the daily lives of citizens and consumers. A data protection committee that advises EU governments warned last year that RFID systems were vulnerable to attacks as people owning a radar could track objects that contain the technology. "The aim is to develop a regulatory framework that will allow the market to develop, whilst addressing the necessary privacy concerns," said a Commission spokesman. A legal framework would tackle technical issues such as ensuring that enough space on the airwaves - or spectrum - needed to carry the data is available Europe-wide. Spectrum is particularly scarce in some countries that reserve certain frequencies for military and civil defence purposes. But regulations would also have to lay down certain standards to protect the technology from abuse. Stephan Engberg from Priway, a small business that makes managed security services, said that the technology was available to prevent any abuse and give individuals control over any tags related to them by disallowing access to the data for any other reader. "Privacy issues in Europe are always very emotional, but if you have physical power over RFID then you eliminate the grounds for these emotional fears, and with this technology you can have that power. Now we have to start asking whether legislation should be used to control it," he said. But some industries hope the Commission will lay down differentiated privacy standards depending on the risks involved in a certain application. They argue that the security needed for a passport is much higher than that needed for a product that a company simply wants to tag to ensure it does not run out of stock. One option being considered by the Commission is to ensure that RFID tags in consumer goods are killed at the point of sale, but Jeroen Terstegge from Philips said that this was "not necessarily the answer". "There will be cases in the future where consumers might want to keep their chip alive after sale, for example in a jar of baby food in case there is a recall," he said. He said the answer was to make sure that any standards were application-based rather than technology-based. "If the Commission mandates that all RFIDs must be killed, this will have a negative effect on the roll-out of this technology in Europe," he said. Article on plans of the European Commission's to regulate Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). This new technology, used to track consumer goods and people, aroused the suspicion of data privacy advocates because it could be used by law enforcement agencies and companies to monitor the movement and behaviour of citizens. Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for the Information Society was to launch a debate on 9 March 2006 on whether the use of this identification technology should be regulated at the EU level. |
|
| Source Link | http://www.european-voice.com/ |
| Related Links |
|
| Subject Categories | Business and Industry, Values and Beliefs |
| Countries / Regions | Europe |
