Schauer: Consumer Controlled RFID

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The boundary where technology and society meet is a rich source of possibilities. The messes and gaps that form there create customer needs and new business opportunities. Example: the approaching clash between Radio Frequency Identification Tags and personal privacy.

Annually, the average American brings thousands of consumer products into his/her home. Today, almost all of these products have bar codes, but it is predicted within the next 5 to 10 years consumer product industries will likely attempt to replace these bar codes with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. While RFID technology offers many advantages to manufacturers and retailers, the future impact on consumers is highly controversial. Early attempts by Wal-Mart and Benetton to integrate RFID technology into consumer products have failed, being met by consumer backlash over privacy concerns.

Ethnographic research indicated a growing uneasiness among consumers regarding control over their own privacy. For example, some customers developed "work-arounds" to loyalty card savings programs at grocery stores to prevent collection of data on all their purchases. Considering these negative behaviors and attitudes together with the documented backlashes to RFID, it seems likely that consumers may never accept RFID unless their needs are taken into consideration.

The opportunity exists for one or many of the players in the RFID industry to create a new standard by offering a consumer-supporting RFID tag. A superior tag could be easily disabled by a customer after purchasing the product and leaving the store, or it could remain enabled and become a part of a supporting network of tagged belongings once it arrives in the home. This growing network of belongings can fulfill common consumer needs of organization, upkeep, asset protection, transactions, and information control. As a result of these benefits, consumer products with an appropriately branded RFID tag might be considered a superior product, not a fearful foe.

Fear: Spoof ad criticizing Benetton's use of RFID

Organization, Upkeep, Asset Protection, Transactions, Information Control

Need: Customer
needs that RFID can address

Opportunity: Balancing the value stream between customers, retailers, and manufacturers

Teammates: Rachel Hinman and Ryan Pikkel
For more on socio-technical borders, see Tara Lemmey's Wired article, "Obstacles, Or On the Edge?"