RFID - another look

RFID Tags as the New Product Code
http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=services\technology\vision\sil_rfid_tags.xml

According to this article RFID enables the electronic labeling and wireless identification of objects using radio communications. In this article Accenture talks about the future of the technology as they see it in terms of inventory tracking using RFID and a Global Positioning System. They call it “silent commerce”.

WalMart discusses the usefulness of this technology, also in terms of inventory tracking but in a more traditional sense. RFID is supposed to have more benefits than the UPC because the UPC has to be scanned in a clear line of site to the bar code. Now the key issue is proximity, which as with most technologies will likely improve at an exponential degree and not be an issue for very long.

There are inherent problems with current UPCs that I would suspect would be similar to the new RFID codes such as erroneous readings and corrupt data. The fact that the RFID chips can be read leaves me to suspect that they will be prime for tampering by unauthorized individuals. It seems like wide spread use of RFIDs is risky because, every time data is transmitted, either to be read or written, the data is more susceptible to intervention and tampering. Plus the more data that is stored in one place, the more we need to look closer at the associated privacy laws. The technology isn’t at the point of being profitable to be applied to individual items yet but once they are then some commercial outlets may decide it is a good idea to encode them with your personal customer information id. Combining identifiers is where the real meaning comes from.

This makes me think of the security of my garbage in the future. Currently it is widely known that you should shred any garbage that contains identity information so as to prevent identity theft. What form will the implementation of these RFID codes take in the future and how will we as individuals manage the thorough destruction of the codes to ensure our privacy?