Gillette abandon use of smart-chips following protests

james | 16.08.2003 17:47 | Cambridge | London

Gillette have abandoned the use of RFID smart-chips in products following a recent trial of the technology in Tescos supermarket in Cambridge, which attracted protests by local residents.

Following the recent protest in Cambridge against the introduction of smart-chips to track in-store product movements, the Boston Globe ran an article on the issue. Boston is the where the Gillette headquarters are located - within hours Gillette announced they would be abandoning the use of RFID in products.

james

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Wow

16.08.2003 18:06

That was easy :-)

Poon

Cool. Now thats stop ID cards...

18.08.2003 03:51

Stopping bad stuff at conseption is easy than doing it when the bad stuff is fully implimented.

Good news - the best a man can get!

18.08.2003 09:51

I like to think that my lunch-hour sabotage may have contributed to the failure...

We need to keep our eyes on this one as I'm sure that the chip makers will find another unscrupulous corp to pilot it's chips as quick as you can say 'unscrupulous microchipping bastards'

It'll take much more concerted opposition to resist ID cards...

Mach3

computer readable passports?

21.08.2003 16:17

As of 1 Oct 2003, French citizens with "old", non-computer-readable
passports will no longer be able to visit the USA for short visits
(<90days) without a visa, we'll have to apply for a visa, expect to wait
up to 8 weeks, and have an interview at the US embassy/consulate. But if
we have a computer-readable passport, all is hunky dory, no
visa needed.

The reason is clear. When it's difficult for a middle class person to
buy an "ordinary" computer with *less* than 40Gb of memory, the idea of
storing and circulating a page or two of data on, say, 500 million people
is extremely practical and tempting for authorities, who can certainly pay
for 10-100 times this amount of data storage and handling. 60 years ago all
the "Jews" had to be tracked, now all these "foreigners" have to be tracked.

Orwell, eat your heart out!

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=43&ItemID=4031

How is it in the UK? Are passports computer readable? Will UK citizens
with non-computer-readable passports be required to apply for visas, even for
short visits, to the USA?

Time to reread "1984"...

frog ;)

Kudos

21.08.2003 17:25

Kudos to the Boston Globe for initially running such an article.

Dianna
mail e-mail: deb188us@yahoo.com

Gillette RFID trial

22.08.2003 10:28

So Gillette have got the message but the fight against this stuff has really only just begun. As the AutoID Centre's ultimate aim is to "Identify Any Object, Anywhere, Automatically" I think we still have much to do. Well done to Indymedia for picking up and running with the RFID issue.

Chris Mc
mail e-mail: info@notags.co.uk
Homepage: http://www.notags.co.uk

passports & ID cards

22.08.2003 13:42

British passports are "machine-readable" as with all EU passports now. Don't know if that's different from 'computer-readable'.

Stop ID cards being introduced (perhaps a bigger battle) www.defy-id.org.uk

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