RFID aka radio frequency identification technology might be rolled out at a supermarket near you, very soon. i hear you all going "huh??". let me explain or you may already know, RFID can be used instead of barcodes and it is a small tag that can be placed on pallets of stock or individuals products. this tag sends out information about the product's whereabouts. extremely beneficial for retailers when it comes to tracking stock, decreasing levels of theft and it means that they can cut costs in transporting goods which means lower prices for us!!

BUT, theres a big but, because this tag sends out radio signals to show its whereabouts, this means products can be tracked while theyre in your kitchen cupboards!! or those trousers u bought last week can be tracked while u are wearing them in their shop!!

so how do u feel about that then?

I heard about this on some tv program.

No way should they be allowed to track their products indefinately.
Fine track it until I get it out of the shop but after that, no thanks.
Although looking in my cupboards there are a few tins that have been there a while, wouldn't look to good for the company to see that their tins hasn't been opened since being bought:laugh:

I would think there are more than enough radio waves polluting the airways right now! What harm will this do to us - or more so to a baby who is wearing these tagged items?

Nope, not happy about this at all, I shall just go back to the corner shop (if I can still find one!) and see 'em all off!

maybe the corner shop will have tagged their items too. currently doing a case study type coursework on a conveniece store retailer who undertakes in supplying independents, ie cornershops as well as their own shops. they havent used it yet coz it costs too much and they cant see the benefits but the way my report is going it looks like they may have to implement it to keep up with asda and tesco.

It is yet another idiocy to undermine our civil rights then?


Talk about Big Brother!

I can understand them wanting to use this sort of technology to keep track of stock but surely once the item has been sold and removed from the store there is no need to track it at all.....I mean if a product is selling well it's good...if it's not it's bad were the heck it ends up is neither here nor there......all the store needs to know is that in a particualr area of the country they sell more X Brand beans than in another and so stock the store that sells more X Brand beans with more X Brand beans and less of the others....it's not rocket science! :wacko:

What if naughty people get hold of tracking technology and know you have just bought a designer jacket.....or widescreen TV etc....it may well risk your chances of being burgled..... :angry: :unsure:

I am one of these people who have nothing to hide so CCTV can follow me all the way home for all I care and if they want my postcode in a store to check marketing so be it but to track me an my newly bought goods is taking the pee! :angry:

I've never heard of this before I read this thread, but I really think it is a step too far. As others have said track it until it has been sold but after that really is a bit much :(

i have done some more research on this, and the tags can be deactivated after "kill" command but to do this they need a machine so they can deactivate them at the checkout. and when its fully implemented you wont even have to do that anymore, from what i gather u just walk through something and the whole lot is deactivated. of course for retailers this creates problems etc when goods are returned.

but for us theres the benefit that when we shop we no longer have to wait in a massive queue. the technology picks up what your buying and when you walk out the door its automatically debited from your account. so theres no need for checkout operators anymore!

like coastie says, there is the possibility of naughty people getting a hold of that data about your purchases and doing bad things.

dont think RFID will completely take hold until a while away though!

aside from the supermarket side of things. what do u think about placing RFID tags under the skin (coz i think i read something like this) so people can be tracked and if theyre lost or missing thier tags will show their whereabouts. i reckon for this, technology has gone too far!

There is talk that this has already been done in certain circles (the whole tagging a human under the skin thing)....I suppose it's only one step up from tagging your pet or having one of those tracking thingies in your car...scarey huh! :unsure:

I think it's a fabulous idea, they could then e-mail me if one of their products was approaching its sell-by date, and nothing would go to waste. hey, they could even check out what else I had in and suggest recipes for me :cool2: .

The supermarkets already know exactly what you buy whenever you use a store loyalty card, they know what you buy, how often you buy it and how you pay for it. I really don't see the difference in them knowing what part of your kitchen you store it in.

Didn't they do that with razor blades because they were the item most likely to be nicked?

What's the restriction on range with a RFID Kooky? Wouldn't they have to be close to a reading device before anything was activated. I'm thinking yards not miles.

I'm wondering whether the technology needed to track a tin of beans from Tesco to your home twenty miles away would be disproportionately expensive compared to the amount of useful data obtained.

well thats it noxy, at the moment its too expensive to run and there arent any true benefits. so until the technology is fine tuned a bit i dont see it overtaking as yet. and the amount of data they would gather would be huge and they seriously wouldnt be able to cope. saying that they they deal with huge amounts of data with loyalty cards anyway and it took them ages to work out how to use that effectively.

the range of the rfid signal isnt huge at the moment but once its fully implemented the receivers could be everywhere!! wal-mart and tesco are the only guys using it right now and its on pallet level and not individual packages.

i reckon the rfid could be a good idea in theme parks and that. u could let your kids run free and if they went out of a safe zone then the parent could be alerted? a bit like battle royale if you've ever seen it. think legoland might be doing this.

Good point Kooky. I'm sure there could be some useful applications for rfid. The tagging of criminals has already been discussed, but as you said it could be used to provide a safer environment, not only for children but anyone who might be at risk. Used wisely, it could have advantages as well as disadvantages.