Tesco have chosen their Cambridge store to pilot a new product smart-tagging scheme. Together with Gillette they are testing the RFID technology in packs of razor blades to track product movements and photograph shoppers as they move around the store. Images of people are stored on a database from the moment they lift the product from the shelf. As the tags are not removed or deactivated upon exiting the store, and can potentially be tracked by anyone with a suitable device, a national roll-out of such technology would present serious implications for personal privacy.

A group of concerened Cambridge residents demonstrated outside the local tesco's where the pilot scheme is taking place. They handed out leaflets to raise awareness of the scheme, and to encourage people to take action in order to prevent the use of the tags being extended to a wider range of products.

www.nocards.org, a campaign site for consumers against supermarket privacy invasion, has information and news about RFID technology and supermarket data collection.

www.autoidcenter.org. The Auto-ID centre, which is also based in Cambridge, is producing an international protocol for RFID technology. According to their webiste thay are "designing, building, testing and deploying a global infrastructure - a layer on top of the Internet - that will make it possible for computers to identify any object anywhere in the world instantly."

A proposed EU directive would ban the removal of RFID chips from products as such removal could impact on the intellectual property rights of the chip manufacturer.

Related articles on indymedia
RFID technology - www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/07/274466.html

Demonstration at Tesco in Cambridge - www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/cambridge/2003/08/275490.html