Residual RFIDs - are these a threat - Essay Example

Threats associated with residual RFID By Threats associated with residual RFID A radio frequency identification tag is a tag that uses an electromagnetic field that helps in the transfer of information that is used to identify products owned by a given company and track them. These tags are used in different fields that may include chain supply, supermarket and even security agencies. These tags normally remain in the products that are purchased by consumers and any person in possession of a scanner can readily acquire information of this product. They can access the price of the product, where it was bought and the details of the buyer. This information has adverse threats on the person that buy the products containing these tags because the information can be used to cause harm to them when it lands in wrong hands (Cazier, Wilson and Medlin 2007). Some of these threats are outlined below.
The RFID tags can be used by non-authorized personnel to track and retrieve personal information of people without their knowledge using objects containing these tags. The assessment of their belonging may lead to access to these belongings without the consent of the owner (Spiekermann and Ziekow 2005).
The use of mining of data can help acquire information from RFID tags. This information can be used to retrieve and identify the social links that exist between people. This information can be used by security agents to track criminals, but it can also be used by criminal to cause harm to the people (Spiekermann and Ziekow 2005).
RFID tags can also cause technology paternalism. This is the fear in people who have objects that contain these tags over the lack of control of machines’ action that cannot be overridden. This can cause punishment to owners of these objects thus intruding on the peoples live.
RFID residual tags have their benefits, but the presence of threats on the lives of consumers cannot be overruled. Addressing these threats will ensure that consumers are comfortable buying products containing these tags (Gao, Xiang,Wang, Shen, Huang and Song 2004).
References
Spiekermann, S. and H. Ziekow. (2005). “ RFID: A 7-Point Plan to Ensure Privacy,” 13th European Conference on Information Systems, Regensburg, Germany.
Cazier, J. A., E. Wilson and B. D. Medlin. (2007). “The Role of Privacy Risk in IT Acceptance: An Empirical Study,” forthcoming in International Journal of Information Security and Privacy.
Gao, X., Z. Xiang, H. Wang, J. Shen, J. Huang, and S. Song. (2004). “An Approach to Security and Privacy of RFID System for Supply Chain,” Proceedings of the Conference on IEEE International, September 2004, pp. 164-168. Read More