Spy Chips Trip?
From Anita Campbell’s RFID Weblog comes the news that the US Department of State has issued final rules for RFID (radio frequency identified devices) passports and will begin testing the epassports with diplomats. If all goes smoothly, the new passports will be issued to all in October 2006. The original announcement in February was apparently anything but smooth with privacy and security advocates agreeing with each other that the use of wireless chips would place our civil liberties and our safety at risk….despite the controversy, next years trip, will be with a chip. As an aside, Anita’s Small Business Trends Blog has been named one of the 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs by About.com.
Gillette & P&G are two of the major consumer products companies that have been using RFID technology for inventory management in the supply chain and experimenting with using the chips to gather consumer usage data… giving new meaning to the terms, product placement and in-home testing. Gillette razors have been on the cutting edge of this controversial use of RFID although they deny any tracking, photgraphing or videotaping of consumers.
Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre, founders of CASPIAN (stands for Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) have written a book called, Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID . Well certainly there are privacy issues with RFID…after all it is tracking technology. But these two women and their book and organization take their version of spychips on a wild trip over the top….its not just a conspiracy that they see, RFID is the "mark of the beast". In fact they have a "Chrisitian" edition coming out in January that will more directly make this link. Their valid points are not served well by their bibical, Nazi, and Orwellian references.
And if the RFID Revalations connection wasn’t outrageous enough, CIO Insights has a quote from their book where they attack the poor marketing folks based upon "research" that has " found that marketing students score lower on measures
of ethics and academic integrity than any other university majors…and "marketing majors cheat significantly more than their peers in other business disciplines." Well, let’s compare the number of marketing majors behind bars with the number of finance and accounting majors! And have they never been in a class with a bunch of pre-med majors?
Technorati Tags: RFID, Passports, Spychips, Marketing
More Sleaze from Banfield Pet Inhospitable
After being subjected to the attempted deceptive Wellness Plan tactics at Banfield Pet on Thursday and having them abuse my cat earlier today, I opened today’s mail to find yet another example of their tactics. After repeatedly telling them that I was not renewing their plan today’s letter informed me that my credit card was approaching its expiration date and that they needed the new expiration date for my card to continue to use my card for my wellness plan payments.
Hel-lo…..you need my permission to continue to use my credit card which you do not have. My credit card does in fact have an end of August expiration date but fortunately it turns out, it also has a new credit card number since I never received the new card. I assume the number change is the problem that they are having using my credit card…I am guessing that an expiration date wouldn’t have stopped them from charging my card for continuing their Wellness Plan beyond my cancellation request.
My favorite part? "It’s our vision to treat your Pet like family, and we thank you for entrusting your Pet’s health to us." Their vision is my pet and my family’s nightmare. Apparently their tag-line is "Treating Your Pet Like Family". They must have some crazy family!
As an aside, when we adopted one of our cats the adoption people suggested that we have a RFID tag implanted so she would not get lost but not to use the one’s from Banfield because they didn’t "work". A google search for RFID turns up lots of interesting information on this Banfield fiasco…it seems Banfiel’s RFID tags couldn’t be read by the animal shelters . Whoops!
RFID OK for Babies and Elderly SO Why Not Sexual Predators?
Boing Boing: Former Bush official signs up for RFID implant.
Tommy Thompson former Wisconsin Governor and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary has volunteered to be tagged according to Boing Boing. It seems Thompson is on the Board of Applied Digital who owns VeriChip, a RFID vendor and presumably he is doing this to make us all feel more comfortable about human applications of RFID technology. Thompson mentions usage for elderly nursing home residents and babies in hospitals but not sexual predators. Too bad.
Hello…RFID: We CAN Keep Track of Sexual Predators
As I listen to the media and the politicians discuss "keeping track" of sexual predators in light of the most recent tragedies of Jessica Lunsford and then Shasta and Dylan Groene using language that essentially says, too bad so sad…we can’t keep track of them, I wonder why? Why we don’t seem to want to keep track of them?
Here is one example of this nonsense from Fox News:
"U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, is trying to push
a bill through Congress that would help keep better track of convicted
sex offenders. The Child Predator Act of
2005 would, among other things, require states to specify that a
convicted predator must report a change of address within 10 days after
the change of address takes effect. The law would also require that
offenders notify schools, public housing and at least two media outlets
of their whereabouts. Penalties for not complying with the law could
mean up to two years in prison or hefty fines, according to the
legislation."
The bill also calls on the FBI to set up an Internet site that includes a recent photograph and address of child predators.
Ok, so these known repeat criminals who prey on our children are supposed to tell us who they are and where they are and if they don’t they could go back to jail for up to two years or receive a "hefty fine"???? Huh? Don’t they usually "tell us" by striking again??? And aren’t they considered "untreatable"??
It is completely mystifiying to me that we act so incredibly stupid about this….the technolocy most certainly exists to keep track of these criminals….we can keep track of our tools through RFID technology, WalMart can manage their inventory through RFID technology and we can use microships for our lost pets.
So, why is it we can keep track of sexual predators? And the same for restraining orders…why is a restraining order issued for an abuser as if that alone will eliminate the risk. The families of those murdered under retraining orders wonder that also.
We have the technology…WHY don’t we use it?
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