Tiny microchips that can track retail goods through radio signals must be deactivated when the products leave the store to avoid an Orwellian nightmare, Ontario's Privacy Commissioner said Monday.
“People are very concerned that you might be tracking their purchases and their habits and their activities,” Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian said. “You want to nip that in the bud, by leading with openness and transparency.”
The recommendation was part of a report published Monday by Ms. Cavoukian's office. The Privacy Commissioner directed her guidelines to businesses planning to use the controversial technology known as radio-frequency identification to track the movement of items inside their stores.
An RFID chip can be attached to just about anything. It doesn't need a power source, as it feeds off radio signals from a reader.
Wal-Mart Canada Corp. and Staples Business Depot Canada are already experimenting with RFID systems to track palettes of products from the supplier to the store.
But privacy concerns arise when the surreptitious chips are embedded into objects that find their way into people's homes. This could enable the surveillance of individuals, Ms. Cavoukian wrote.
There are no known RFID applications at the item level in Canada.
But that might change very soon as the price of a single chip is making forays into 10 cents territory, down from 40 cents a few years ago, experts have said.
“At the item level, we're three to five years away,” said Art Smith, chief executive officer of EPCglobal Canada, a standards organization that aims at integrating RFID systems the world over in a giant “internet of things.”
Mr. Smith said consumers should not fear the technology, as RFID chips are already designed with the provision of deactivation.
But some remained skeptical.
“Minimum legislation is better,” said Mel Fruitman, the vice-president of the Consumer's Association of Canada. “If these guidelines are not followed . . . by everybody, then other actions have to be taken.”
