Legislators, who are fearful of allowing the industry to police itself, have attempted to do little more than codify these stipulations into law. Still, the RFID industry has resisted. In 2004, Utah became the first state to try, and fail, to enact RFID regulations. State legislators attempted to pass a “Right to Know” Act based on the EPC Global regulations. The bill passed the House of Representatives, but it expired before it was voted on in the Senate.
According to rfidbuzz.com, a blog and sounding board, RFID users were worried about clauses insisting that tags be disabled or removed at the point of sale. “Retailers demanded changes to the bill,” the Web site says, and the bill expired before changes were made.
Massachusetts may soon be facing a similar situation. In 2004, State Senator Jarrett Barrios sponsored legislation comparable to that rejected in Utah. The bill, SB-181, says that consumers have a right to know about RFID and to have their tags removed before leaving a store. It also says that consumers must give a retailer permission to track their purchasing and buying habits.
The bill received a 90-day extension earlier this month, but Barrios’s office is not certain that it will be approved. “We’re still fighting for it to be reviewed favorably,” says Dalie Jiminez, director of special programs for Barrios. “But for most people, [RFID] hasn’t hit home yet.”
The opinion of Terry Laine, spokesman for the US Energy and Commerce Committee, reflects this sentiment. Though one of its committees held an information session in July 2004 to examine the potential uses and abuses of RFID, it has not yet proposed any legislation. “We have a pretty robust privacy agenda, but I don’t think that RFID is an issue that at this point has caused a lot of concern,” Laine told the Phoenix.
Trojan horse
Americans are generally unconcerned about RFID because they don’t know about it yet. And the industry wants to keep it that way.
Albrecht recalls attending an RFID conference last year where she proposed a Right to Know Act. “I have legislation that is not trying to kill this technology,” she told an audience of RFID manufacturers. “All you have to do is identify that you’re using tags.”
Yet instead of expressing relief that the bill would not limit the technology, Albrecht says, the crowd grew irritable. “You know as well as I do, if you tell the public [about RFID], then they won’t let you do it,” she recalls a man saying.
Albrecht says that the industry is trying to use a Trojan Horse to implement RFID, so that the technology will arrive in our midst before we have a chance to react. “By the time consumers become aware of this technology, there will be nothing they can do about it,” Albrecht says.
Herb Markwardt, RFID project leader for Tyson Foods, reinforced this idea during a presentation at last month’s RFID conference. “If you want the technology to become ubiquitous, you must get it to the consumer in a form they think they can’t live without,” he said.
