Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to roll out sophisticated electronic ID tags to track individual pairs of jeans and underwear, the first step in a system that advocates say better controls inventory but some critics say raises privacy concerns.
Starting next month, the retailer will place removable “smart tags” on individual garments that can be read by a hand-held scanner. Wal-Mart workers will be able to quickly learn, for instance, which size of Wrangler jeans is missing, with the aim of ensuring shelves are optimally stocked and inventory tightly watched. If successful, the radio-frequency ID tags will be rolled out on other products at Wal-Mart’s more than 3,750 U.S. stores.
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But the company’s latest attempt to use its influence—executives call it the start of a “next-generation Wal-Mart”—has privacy advocates raising questions.
While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages, they can’t be turned off, and they are trackable. Some privacy advocates hypothesize that unscrupulous marketers or criminals will be able to drive by consumers’ homes and scan their garbage to discover what they have recently bought.
“While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages, they can’t be turned off, and they are trackable. ”
-While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages-
If they can be removed from the goods sold WHAT is the concern????
Who wrote this twaddle?
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Now, they’d be able to find my local trash transfer station. If I bought my underwear at WalMart.
I’ll go hide under my bed, right away.
“Some privacy advocates hypothesize that unscrupulous marketers or criminals will be able to drive by consumers’ homes and scan their garbage to discover what they have recently bought.”
Obviously the US is in pretty damn good shape privacy wise if this is all that privacy advocates have to worry about.
Big F-in Deal.
Old Navy has been using RFID tags in jeans for at least two years. They’re big ones, sewn into a tag in the waistband. If the tags are not removed from the jeans, the tag isn’t likely to be operational after a couple washes. In the meantime, are there spies looking to see who buys size 36-30 jeans from Walmart?
And tags CAN be turned off if they’re designed to industry standards. All tags have a kill code. Seems unlikely Walmart isn’t executing that code.
“Wal-Mart Installing Permanent ID Tags to Track Jeans and Underwear”
“While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages…”
Grrr!
P.S. This must be NoAgenda home-work, spot the misleading headline.
“While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages, they can’t be turned off, and they are trackable. Some privacy advocates hypothesize that unscrupulous marketers or criminals will be able to drive by consumers’ homes and scan their garbage to discover what they have recently bought.”
OMG! Someone tracking my waste size by scanning my garbage! I don’t give a darn about a worthless US “intelligence” network that spends hundreds of billions of my tax dollars a year, but someone scanning my garbage. That crosses the line buddy!
Microwaving the RFID tags will destroy them. That is equivalent to turning them off.
This is a good resource about the prevalence of RFID in society: http://spychips.com/
why is this posted? JCD gave a lesson on hit pieces on No Agenda. go listen to it. or is the blogger trolling?
This has nothing to do with tracking anyone this has to do with the fact that Wal-Mart employee’s are incompetent and cannot track stock. The shelves are always bare or overstocked in Wal-Mart the tags are to take it out of the hands of the employee’s.
Why was this story even posted? When the article contradicts the headline, what’s the point?
If Walmart’s goal is to track inventory more efficiently, why don’t they use the UPC code that they scan on checkout to update their inventory db?
LDA, yer right. This must be a test. JC Penneys has had RFID chips in stuff for years.
Are those chem-trails in the sky?
Hey Privacy Nuts. Focus on the important stuff. You think RFID tags are bad? How about some concern over the Obamacare the forces the release of our medical records to anyone who knows the universal password that all doctors and nurses will have. How long will that password remain private? Four, three, two…
# 9 birddog said, “This has nothing to do with tracking anyone this has to do with the fact that Wal-Mart employee’s are incompetent and cannot track stock. The shelves are always bare or overstocked in Wal-Mart the tags are to take it out of the hands of the employee’s.”
More like the corporate buyers are incompetent and can’t buy the right amount of stock. The employees just offload the trucks and put the stock on the shelves. It is the corporate buyer who has the ability to screw stuff up by over- or under-stocking the store.
Any of you ever see those big square stickers on the inside of DVD movie cases? Not the little rectangular ones, those are security tags. They’re 1.5 inches square.
Virtually all commercial DVD cases have these ‘stickers’, which are the same RFID tags Walmart is planning to use. So, the MPAA just needs some souped-up readers and they can start scanning neighborhoods.
#10 webitube…the deal with RFID is you go back to the men’s clothing department, stand near the rack of jeans, press a couple button to narrow down the search on the scanner, and hit the scan button.
Done.
Article translation:
Walmart is switching from UPC to RFID. Uninformed idiots cry. More at 11.
Can’t be turned off my bleep! Did this e-jut ever hear of a hammer? I got a three pound hand sledge that will turn off darned near anything!
So how does this work? Why do they need a handheld scanner? Why do they need to scan every single garment if they are using RFID? Why can’t they just read off the shelves storewide? For that matter, how about just a single total button to handle the checkout?
I always forget where I left my underwear so this is a good thing. However, I don’t do Chinese outlets like Walmart. I do my part to help American industry, unlike the hypocrite sheeple in here.
What they ought to do is put these in every sock. Then we can get unravel the mystery of where all the missing socks go.