Article from the Daily Telegraph (UK) dated 18 April 2003.

A free country by Stephen Robinson

If you buy a jacket at Benetton, do you want the company to know that you later popped around the corner to buy a jumper at Gap; or that you wore the jacket to a party at the Savoy; or where you have it dry-cleaned? You might not care either way, but soon you may have no choice in the matter, courtesy of new technology that is strengthening the hand of companies that want to spy on their customers.

The generic name for the system is RFID, which stands for radio frequency identification. RFID tags are minuscule microchips, smaller than a grain of sand, that can be sewn in to clothing or attached to almost any object. The chips respond to a radio signal by transmitting back their own unique ID code, allowing the controller of the chip to know precisely where the object is. Retailers love the technology, for it greatly assists in inventory control and security. But increasingly companies are looking ahead to more ambitious applications that will provide information about consumers long after they have left the shop.

After it was reported that Benetton was to attach 15 million chips to its garments this year, privacy groups in America created such a fuss that the company was forced to backtrack and declared all its current clothing lines to be chip-free. But the company reserved its right to press on with a feasibility study "to generate maximum value for its stakeholders and customers". Many other companies are also looking at the technology.

Though their intentions are no doubt largely benign, it is easy to see how this technology could be adapted and abused in a corporate culture where the acquisition of data about individuals has become a goal in itself.

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