Senator tackles spam and RFID
Published: 03 Sep 2003 15:10 BST
Is legislation part of the solution?
I think it's too early to tell. The goal of the hearing was to engage in what I believe will be the first of many policy discussions on RFID. As you undoubtedly know, there are a lot of people who simply aren't aware of what some of these tags do. They may have noticed the tag. It can be sort of a long, metallic-looking thing, but people don't really know what it is.
They don't know what data is transmitted. They don't understand that when someone uses a credit card to buy a particular product, the tag can potentially link that product to the identity of the purchaser. We have a lot to do to educate the public. We need to have a dialogue about what is appropriate and how we'll solve the privacy concern before a bill is introduced.
Do you think that the retail industry can police itself on this and do the right thing?
They certainly should be part of the solution, because they know how the technology works and what's possible. And ultimately, whatever decisions get made about privacy issues, the cost will have to be built into the system. I'm not in general a real big fan of self-policing. I think it's been fairly ineffective. Exhibit No. 1 would be spam.
RFID hasn't exactly reached the level of spam in terms of public awareness. Why focus on this now?
The very architecture of the Internet itself enables spam and makes it difficult to track down spammers and close systems to spam. We have an opportunity with RFID tags -- because we are very much in the beginning of the broad use of these things -- to build systems that will help us solve the privacy and tracking concerns. And that will be far better than if we wait until we have an enormous problem later.
Even if you passed an RFID bill in this state, what good would it do? Many companies planning to use it -- Wal-Mart Stores, Gillette, Procter & Gamble -- are based in other states.
As a practical matter, California is such an enormous marketplace, with almost 34 million people, that whatever we do here means that retailers, wholesalers and so forth will have to make a decision about whether to make a separate standard for California -- if we lead the pack, as we often do -- or to simply adopt a particular standard that begins here and use it across the country. That actually happens more than you might think.
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