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Jim Magay |
I’m upset – we’ve
had a crime wave around here the past month or so.
Weird stuff stolen like a dispenser of Purel hand
sanitizer, a small bottle of Scope mouthwash, handfuls
of Advil out of the medicine chest, and – various
high end frames, mostly sunglasses, like Oakley’s,
Sospiris’, and Roberto Cavalli’s. I guess a bit of
larceny is to be expected when you open your doors to
the public, but it still hurts.
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We’ve tried locking frames in cabinets,
but you tend to forget about showing them thus selling
fewer, we also try and stay with browsing customers but
occasionally get short handed. (Actually I prefer to sit
down with a customer and walk them through the selection
process.) So it is an always-shifting equation.
But I’m taking heart, for there is a
technology shaping up that may solve the problem. Ever hear
of RFID chips? RFID stands for radio frequency
identification. They come embedded in computer printers, car
keys and tires, and department store clothing tags. They’re
also in library books and “contactless” payment cards
(such as American Express’ “Blue” and ExxonMobil’s
“Speedpass.”) and the ever-popular toll passes like
Fastlane, etc.
The RFID industries growth has been
staggering: From 1955 to 2005, cumulative sales of radio
tags totaled 2.4 billion; last year alone, 2.24 billion tags
were sold worldwide, and analyst’s project that by 2017
cumulative sales will top 1 trillion—generating more than
$25 billion in annual revenues for the industry.
Isn’t that great, what could possibly
go wrong with such a boon to mankind? Well – the devil is
in the details (or more correctly, in a bunch of patents). A
2005 patent application by American Express describes how
RFID-embedded objects carried by shoppers could emit “identification
signals” when queried by electronic “consumer trackers.”
The system could identify people, record their movements,
and send them video ads that might offer “incentives” or
“even the emission of a scent.”
In 2006, IBM received patent approval for
an invention it called, “Identification and tracking of
persons using RFID-tagged items.” One stated purpose: To
collect information about people that could be “used to
monitor the movement of the person through the store or
other areas.” But as the patent makes clear, IBM’s
invention could work in other public places, and could even
help “follow a particular crime suspect through public
areas.”
Another patent, obtained in 2003 by NCR
Corp., details how camouflaged sensors and cameras would
record customers’ wanderings through a store, film their
facial expressions at displays, and time—to the second—how
long shoppers hold and study items. Why? Such monitoring “allows
one to draw valuable inferences about the behavior of large
numbers of shoppers,” the patent states.
Then there’s a 2001 patent application
by Procter & Gamble, “Systems and methods for tracking
consumers in a store environment.” This one lays out an
idea to use heat sensors to track and record “where a
consumer is looking, i.e., which way she is facing, whether
she is bending over or crouching down to look at a lower
shelf.”
The documents “raise the hair on the
back of your neck,” says Liz McIntyre, co-author of “Spychips,”
a book that is critical of the industry. “The industry has
long promised it would never use this technology to track
people. But these patent records clearly suggest otherwise,”
she said.
Didn’t George Orwell allude to this in
his seminal book, “1984?” He’d even be shocked by this
technology and its potential for abuse.
Well, I guess I’d rather lose a few
sunglasses rather than ALL my personal freedoms; that is, if
we have any left!
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