Saturday, October 15, 2005

RFID interest group unveils privacy and and security position paper

The Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility (aka AIM) has released a position paper on RFID privacy and security. It sure has impressed Data Collection Online, which was a little bit breathless in its report on the position paper:

"The position paper, that also includes position statements on other important RFID issues, can be downloaded, at no cost, from the AIM Store from the following link: https://www.aimglobal.org/estore/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=306.

As the professional association representing the full AIM community of providers and end users, AIM Global is uniquely positioned to deliver clear, unbiased, and credible information on auto ID technologies, a broad category of wireless data transmission and data capturing technologies, encompassing RFID."

I haven't read the position paper (more on that below), but I am not sure how you can say that the lobbying group of the RFID industry is "unbiased". Being unbiased suggests being disinterested, which those who make their livelihoods from the products being discussed really aren't. But I digress ...

Registration screen from aimglobal.orgThe document is available for free download from the documents section of the AIM Global website. I didn't download the document, simply because the process to do so involved filling out a huge form that requires information that many would consider intrusive. I just find such forms annoying, since there is no compelling reason given for why the information is necessary. There is no privacy policy and no statement of any kind related to how the information will be used. I am sure that they all mean well, but this registration requirement coupled with no privacy statement significantly undermines whatever their privacy experts have to say on RFID.

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