Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) - Literature review Example

RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION (RFID) By Student’s Name Course Name + Code Professor’s Name University Name City, State Date of Submission PART I: ETHICS REPORT Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a computerized technology, which may be utilized to recognize and track people, employees, objects as well as store information. RFID utilizes wireless communication in frequency at specific bands to convey information from very small tags, which may be tagged on or implanted such things as ID cards, products, bracelets, clothing, vehicles, and in some cases people. The technology might consequently be used to trace individual behavior via objects, which persons put on, touch, carry, or hold. This means that this technology can be used be used to collect workplace information of Solaricot employees thus raising ethical issues in the company. In a research last year, the 25 Privacy Commissioners based in recognized that they anticipate the technology to emerge to be one of the chief basics of a forthcoming "ambient intelligence environment," and stated alarm at the likelihood of this technology to "violate human dignity as well as data protection rights” (Beckner & Li 2010, p. 9). Similar to covert filming, key logging, biometrics, the monitoring of internet use, drug testing, and other privacy-invasive technologies, which have been availed into the workroom over latest years, the arrival of this technology will also produce place of work privacy issues, however in the meantime it will probably have to be acknowledged as a new way of checking employees' behavior and efficiency (Beckner & Li 2010, p. 9). Those stakeholders that will be affected by the introduction of the technology into Solaricot will be the employees, company, stockholders, and developers. The employees in the company will be affected since this will affect their privacy when the Solaricot will decide to use to monitor and collect workplace information regarding the employees. Therefore, the privacy issues of the employees will be violated according to workplace privacy provisions and ethics. The company will be also affected since the employees of Solaricot will file a suit case because the technology according to them violates their right to workplace privacy. This means that the company will face some legal actions and the reputation of the company will be injured. The developers of the RFID will be affected in the sense that if the employees will succeed in blocking the use of the technology the developer will stop producing the technology hence a loss to the company. Furthermore, the stockholders of the company are likely to suffer also if the court case that will be filed by the employees will succeed. This will affect the company’s stockholders because its reputation will be tainted, which means the dividends will be affected (Beckner & Li 2010, p. 43). According to PAPA framework as advocated by Mason (1986), it deals with four issues that include privacy, accuracy, property, and access. Mason’s argument pinpointed on the individual damage that could happen from the immoral utilization of information technology (IT) within the structure designed by PAPA. In 1986, Mason could not ever have anticipated that the supercomputer will emerge to be not only the instrument, however likewise the object, of such solemn moral indiscretions as those that happen in current networked sphere. Nevertheless, his PAPA framework is still pretty relevant in learning moral issues in IT. In terms of privacy it has been argued that the RFID will violate the privacy rights of the employees in Solaricot. As a precondition for the use of the Privacy Act, nevertheless, the data in question should be "personal information", that is, "information about an identifiable individual" (s 2) (Will 2004, p. 7). Where RFID is applied to collect information of the employees, this will increase apprehensions under the Privacy Act where the RFID in gathering or application of information concerning recognizable persons will be viewed to violate the rights of privacy of employees. This is because most of the employees view this technology as intruding their privacy. In terms of access; the company will find it hard to access the information from the employees because the employees have no confidence on the technology. The employees believe that if the employers will access the information this will amount to breaching of their right to privacy in the workplace. Whether or not individual collected data is "collected" is terms of the Privacy Act description will impact the use of the data confidentiality philosophies concerning the gathering of individual information, and in specific values. On the other hand, under the property rights, the employees will repel the technology because they claim that this technology will ‘intrude’ their privacy and their personal information will be subjected to public domain. On the other side, the company claims that they have the right to collect the information from the employees to use for the purposes of tracking and monitoring performance. This will definitely create a conflict between the employees and the management. In terms of accuracy of the information that will collected using the RFID will be affected since the information from the source to the destination ,which is storage in the RFID will raise ethical issues of workplace. The accuracy of the information will not be reliable since most employees do not give out sensitive information related to sex life; political, religious, or other beliefs; criminal opinions (Beckner& Li 2010, p. 42). In order to deal effectively on the ethical issues that will arise in Solaricot while using the RFID there is need to develop solutions that will solve it without freezing the relationship between the employees and management in the company. There will the need for Solaricot to educate its employees of on how the RFID will function in the company. During the education session employees should be convinced that the system will benefit both the company and themselves (Sue 200, p. 65). The management should also highlight to the employees on the ways the company will put in place to ensure that the technology does not affect the employees’ privacy in the workplace. In addition, there is need to include all the stakeholders while resolving the ethical issue that affects the company. This is because the ethical problem affect all the stakeholders hence they should be included in the problem-solving session. This will ensure that all the issues in the privacy issue are addressed and all the stakeholders give their opinions regarding the ethical issue. This implies that all stakeholders in a state need to be involve-for legal as well as ethical motives. This will avert any possible legal action or conflict that will be instigated by the ethical aspect. The company, therefore, should convince the employees that the information they give will be kept confidential and will be used for the benefit of the company and themselves (Will 2004, p. 98). The developers and implementers of the RFID technology should ensure that the system serves its intended purpose and does not violate the workers’ privacy. The systems should be developed in a way that that it will uphold the rights in terms of privacy. Therefore, the developers and implementers in the company should ensure that the systems promotes high confidentiality of the information that will provided by the employee. This will ensure that the employee’s confidence in giving their information is raised (Will 2004, p. 7). Part II: Sustainability Report RFID provides a clear pathway that will enable the company deal effectively with performance of the employees in the company. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is one of the modern technologies that are computerized, which can be employees to track and monitor the employees in a company, which in this case is in Solaricot. The technology can be further used to store the information that is required regarding the employees information to be used by the company for purposes of performance and monitoring the employee’s movement in the company. The RFID technology utilizes wireless message in radio frequency specific ranges to convey information from very trivial tags, which may be entrenched in things, which include employee’s ID cards, products, and vehicles. This technology may, consequently be used to trace employees’ behavior via objects they put on, touch, transport or hold. This technology the much legal suits and criticism it has attracted will become a major technology that will be used by the company to track the employee’s performance and other aspects that will promote the efficiency of the company. The technology is not intended to abuse the privacy of employee’s information, but to benefit them and the company (Waters 2006, p. 82). The principal fundamentals of the technology are a tag, a reader, and in some uses, a databank. The RFID reader images the tag for information, which may be sent and put in storage for additional dispensation in a databank of Solaricot. The leading typical of a technology tag is that it is able to wholly identify that to which it is tagged. Dissimilar from barcodes, the technology tags are more "intelligent", in that they have a memory in the tool that might provide readers with much more data, and this memory may be increased or changed. Furthermore, there is a continual connection, which may monitor regarding the person or worker with which the tag is associated (Waters 2006, p. 87). Therefore, the major place of work uses the technology are physical right to use manage and tracking, whether of definite employee. RFID is an automatic technology which may be applied to recognize and trace objects and living things, as well as store information. The technology applies wireless communication in radio frequency ranges to convey information from very small tags that, which may tagged to or entrenched in things such as clothing, ID cards, and employees. The technology can consequently be utilized to track individual behavior via tracing of objects can be used not only to manage products as they advance via the inventory control and supply chain, however also, circuitously, to appraise performance related with the manufacturing, handling, or passage of a specific product in the company. In union with a databank, the RFID may be used to gather a profile of a person's place of work performance (Will 2004, p. 6). The tracking can be used by the company to track the employees’ locations during working hours to ensure that the employees are in duty at the right time. This means that the technology will allow the managers in Solaricot to monitor the employees without being in the workplace. This will ensure that costs that are used while travelling to the worksites of the company are reduced by the use of the technology. This therefore, will be economical to the Solaricot since they will cut the costs. In addition, the information that has been collected by the system and stored can be used by the management for promotional purposes of those employees who have high performance rate. On the other hand, the information collected can be used to dismiss employees who have shown extremely poor performance for a specific period of time (Lehpamer 2012, p. 165). Furthermore, the RFID can be used to trace how long it takes employees take to finish their responsibilities. The technology will assist the company to make many decisions concerning employee’s performance. Furthermore, the company can used the RFID access card so that the employees can use in the main gate while reporting to work and while leaving the workplace at the end of the day. This will assist the management to effectively track the movements of the employees within the company. From the discussion, it clear that the technology has many ethical implications, however, if used effectively these ethical issues will be ironed out effectively (Waters 2006). Figure 1: RFID diagram showing the transmission of data from the data source to the sink database in the company. List of References Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, 2009 “Working Document on Data Protection Issues related to RFID Technology,” 10107/05/EN, WP 105, pp 2 and 3, available at www.europa.eu.int/comm/privacy. Beckner, M., & Li, H. (2010). BizTalk 2010 recipes: A problem-solution approach. New York: Apress. HyūmanIntafēsuShinpojūmu, Smith, M. J., Salvendy, G., & International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. (2007). Human interface and the management of information: Symposium on Human Interface 2007, held as part of HCI International 2007, Beijing, China, July 22-27, 2007 : proceedings. Berlin: Springer. Lehpamer, H. (2012). RFID Design Principles. Norwood: Artech House. Patrick Van Eecke and Georgia Skouma, 2005), "RFID and privacy: a difficult marriage?" (2005) 10(3) Communications Law 84, at 85. Richard Waters, 2006 "US group implants electronic tags in workers", Financial Times, available at Sue Darcey, 2005 "Keeping Track of Workers with RFIDs: Crucial Workplace Protection or Big Brother?” (2005) 4 (13) Privacy & Security Law 416, available at subscript.bna.com. Will Weissert, 2004 "Chip implanted in Mexican judicial workers,” Associated Press, available at Read More