Further to my column a few weeks back about RFID, the little tags on merchandise that can tell retailers and others an awful lot of information about you, here’s a story from WIRED about how food companies are trying to get the technology declared ‘antiterrorist’.
“Facing increasing resistance and concerns about privacy,” WIRED’s Mark Baard writes, “the United States’ largest food companies and retailers will try to win consumer approval for radio identification devices by portraying the technology as an essential tool for keeping the nation’s food supply safe from terrorists.” The basic idea is that the technology can help keep precise track of all goods and help in recall efforts should their products be contaminated or laced with poison during a terrorist attack.
For sure that could be useful. But it sounds to me like a back door to get the technology on every shelf, which smacks of dishonesty to me. Are terrorists going to start contaminating razor blades and wooly jumpers too?