Inanes Predictions of things to come Part 1.
With the International data protect and privacy commissioners conference just completed and many commentaries in the press,
there is a lot of talk about the future of privacy.
according to the above mentioned conference the Surveillance society is already here.
I myself am inclined to agree.
There are many pros and cons, and many more to come.
but rather than there be any sort of uproar or complaints about the gradual reduction of privacy,
I think it will happen at such a bureaucratic pace that most people won’t even notice it is happening.
To quote the UK's privacy commissioner (from two years ago) "we are at risk of sleepwalking into A surveillance society."I am definitely inclined to agree, unfortunately this has already occurred to a certain extend.
Some of the driving forces going forward that I will be discussing in the next few articles:
- RFID
- Greater and greater connectivity between, everything
- Organisations such as the RIAA, NZFACT and other groups aimed at tracking widespread recalcitrant behaviour.
- A greater use of computer statistics and automated rules in companies and governments increasing the risks of segregation of society and social alienation.
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=== RFID and what it means for you and me===
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The use of RFID is becoming more and more common, and lets face it, why would it not?
cheap to make, easy to use, tiny footprint and a million and one uses.
Let’s take a look at the easy pros to the use of the technology;
when it comes to retailing and sales for instance;
- Stock take, instead of spending money on additional staff or paying staff overtime, you won’t even need to undergo a stock take
- As you will be able to press a button on a reciever at any point and get a complete inventory of everything in the store or warehouse within seconds.
- It will provide a huge boon to store security,
- but you will also be able to get statistical information on the behaviour of customers in the store
- You may discover that customers who purchase item "A" regularly go to specific sections after collecting that item.
- not only that but you could work out the statistical profile of customers individually and link it to their store cards.
An amusing side point for this,
Can you imagine sitting outside a pub or nightclub with your pda-phone, or perhaps umpc, which has an rfid scanner attached to it.
You could then run the scanner, and using some software that wouldn’t be that hard to produce, you could come up with a profile of effectively anyone in there,
and if you were so inclined use an application (that would be quite easy to create) a complete profile of them in 3D from naked to fully clothed based on the clothing sizes of the clothing that responded to the RFID scan.
if RFID's start being added to credit cards and store cards, video and Gym memberships all that information could be stored too.
I could see a sideline market cropping up; where people would sell the rfids from exclusive or expensive brands,Or perhaps copy those RFIDs, so that should anyone scan you they think you are wearing high quality, exclusive labels and bling,
Rather than the warehouse, or on the ladies side of things those that are size self-concious, they might purchase the RFID tags for items of clothing several sizes smaller than they wear!
That’s just an amusing side point that occurred to me.More To Come In the next Update: - Crime, Health and Tracking!
Tag(s):
rfid
advertising
privacy
predictions of the future
internet
web 2
web 3
things to come
surveillance society.
Other related posts:
Internet Censorship, Guilt by accusation, I'm Angry. very angry (S92a - etc)
Privacy laws get long overdue tidyup over Motorist Registration (NZ)
Thailand vs Youtube.... "team Google, world police"??
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Comment by IndoorLBS, on 23-Dec-2006 06:48 , user id: )
Are there any RFID implants for tracking? We feature different tracking technologies -- Local Positioning Systems here http://indoorLBS.com