For all you conspiracy theorists/personal privacy nuts out there, it looks like you have one more thing to worry about. It seems that 100 retailers have joined together to research and develop a system to replace the familiar UPC barcodes that are so ubiquitous. The catch is that this new system will use tiny computer chips and antennae to broadcast information about the product to whoever wants to know. The stated purpose of this is to alert the retailer to important information about the product and make checkout easier. However there are a plethora of privacy issues to consider as well. Chief among these is what is to stop someone from using the merchandise that you purchased to spy on you?
I think that privacy issues are really going to be coming to the forefront even more in the next several years. These issues have been in the forefront for techie types for a while, but I have a feeling that it is really going to come to the attention of the average person in the next couple of years. It feels like 1984 is getting closer every day.
Posted by bhuffine at July 9, 2003 09:36 AM | TrackBack