Levis putting RFID chips in clothing tags
May 2, 2006

Levi Strauss & Co. has come under fire from a privacy group for putting radio-frequency identification chips (RFID) into consumers' pants. But as Advertising Age reports, the company says it is just testing the controversial technology as a means of tracking inventory, and that it's being entirely transparent with customers about the tags and how they're being used.

RFID tags are used to direct or monitor the movement of products through their distribution from warehouse to store shelf. While some say consumer-level applications of RFID are years away in North America, privacy advocates worry that the use of RFID technology will allow corporations and governments to track people and their activities through their belongings.

Consumers Against Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN), a consumer/privacy advocacy group in the U.S., has been an outspoken critic of RFID chips.

"Companies like Levi Strauss are painting their RFID trials as innocuous," CASPIAN said in the statement, adding "once clothing manufacturers begin applying RFID to hang tags, the floodgates will open and we'll soon find these things sewn into the hem of our jeans. ... The problem with RFID is that it's tracking technology, plain and simple."

via: Advertising Age

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murmur categories: services, technology, privacy

tags: consumers consumer news consumerism shopping RFID Levis privacy technology

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