Posted on 05/08/2006 7:26:46 PM PDT by MissAmericanPie
SPYCHIPPED LEVI'S BRAND JEANS HIT THE U.S. Levi Strauss Confirms RFID Test, Refuses to Disclose Location
It may be time to ditch your Dockers and lay off the Levi's, say privacy activists Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre. New information confirms that Levi Strauss & Co. is violating a call for a moratorium on item-level RFID by spychipping its clothing. What's more, the company is refusing to disclose the location of its U.S. test.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a controversial technology that uses tiny microchips to track items from a distance. These RFID microchips have earned the nickname "spychips" because each contains a unique identification number, like a Social Security number for things, that can be read silently and invisibly by radio waves. Over 40 of the world's leading privacy and civil liberties organizations have called for a moratorium on chipping individual consumer items because the technology can be used to track people without their knowledge or consent.
Jeffrey Beckman, Director of Worldwide and U.S. Communications for Levi Strauss, confirmed his company's chipping program in an email exhange with McIntyre, saying "a retail customer is testing RFID at one location [in the U.S.]...on a few of our larger-volume core men's Levi's jeans styles." However, he refused to name the location.
"Out of respect for our customer's wishes, we are not going to discuss any specifics about their test," he said. Beckman also confirmed the company is tagging Levi Strauss clothing products, including Dockers brand pants, at two of its franchise locations in Mexico.
McIntyre was tipped off to the activity by a mention in an industry publication. The article indicated Levi Strauss was looking for additional RFID "test partners."
Albrecht believes the companies are keeping mum about the U.S. test location in order to prevent a consumer backlash. Clothing retailer Benetton was hit hard by a consumer boycott led by Albrecht in 2003 when the company announced plans to embed RFID tags in its Sisley line of women's clothing. The resulting consumer outcry forced the company to retreat from its plans and disclaim its intentions.
Levi Strauss can little afford similar problems with consumers. It is one of the world's largest brand-name apparel marketers with a presence in more than 110 countries, but has suffered through several years of declining sales as younger consumers gravitate to new brands. The company has also been hurt by Wal-Mart's decision to cut back on inventory in a bid to shore up its own declining sales.
While Levi Strauss reports that its current RFID trials use external RFID "hang tags" that can be clipped from the clothes and the focus is on inventory management, not customer tracking, the company isn't guaranteeing how it will use RFID in the future.
"Companies like Levi Strauss are painting their RFID trials as innocuous," observes Albrecht. "But this technology is extraordinarily dangerous. There is a reason why we have asked companies not to spychip clothing. Few things are more intimately connected with an individual than the clothes they wear."
"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," Albrecht adds. "The problem with RFID is that it is tracking technology, plain and simple."
Albrecht and McIntyre point out that tracking people through the things they wear and carry is more than mere speculation. In their book "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID," they reveal sworn patent documents that describe ways to link the unique serial numbers on RFID-tagged items with the people who purchase them.
One of the most graphic examples is IBM's "Identification and Tracking of Persons Using RFID-Tagged Items." In that patent application, IBM inventors suggest tracking consumers for marketing and advertising purposes.
"That's enough to steam most consumers," says McIntyre."But IBM's proposal that the government track people through RFID tags on the things they wear and carry should send a cold chill down our spines."
IBM inventors detail how the government could use RFID tags to track people in public places like shopping malls, museums, libraries, sports arenas, elevators, and even restrooms.
"Make no mistake," McIntyre adds. "Today's RFID inventory tags could evolve into embedded homing beacons. Unchecked, this technology could become a Big Brother bonanza and a civil liberties nightmare."Technically Speaking An Interview With Katherine Albrecht, Author & RFID Watchdog
Katherine Albrecht has been called the Erin Brockovich of RFID. She defines a consumer privacy expert, however, as “someone who pays attention to the risks that consumers run when they go about their regular business.” Albrecht’s actions would seem to back up her words. She’s the founder and director of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering), a consumer watchdog group that has more than 12,000 subscribers to its Web site (www.nocards.org) and representatives in all 50 states and 30 countries. Albrecht, who’s finishing up a doctorate degree in consumer education at Harvard University, is also the co-author of “Spychips: How Major Corporations And Government Plan To Track Your Every Move With RFID.”
by Barry Brenesal
CPU: What is your main concern about RFID technology?
Albrecht: It’s an incredibly powerful technology that easily lends itself to abuse. RFID readers can be placed invisibly in the environment. RFID tags can be placed on clothes and in people’s belongings. And maybe the most worrisome part is that the companies that are aiming to put the readers in the environment and the tags into people’s belongings have spelled out some pretty frightening plans for how they hope to abuse the technology—literally to use it to spy on people.
CPU: What could RFID tagging track, for example?
Albrecht: Probably the best example is a patent from IBM called “Identification and tracking of persons using RFID-tagged items.” They filed it a few years back. IBM has been in on the RFID/EPC (Electronic Prod....
I'm kidding about the 20 minutes BTW :)
I honestly wonder if a sufficiently hot dryer would take care of it....
Kidding aside, what you are saying is pretty serious. We need some privacy laws fast.
RFID only works on a small scale right? I mean the RFID key to get into my office has a range of 3 inches. I know they can get alot farther but its also alot more expensive.
I don't mind the hassle, within reason, so long as the RFID-disabled passport is ultimately accepted. I mean, I do mind even slight hassle, to be sure, but not remotely as much as I mind having an RFID passport.
And yes, I surely do blame the Bush administration and the GOP congresses, FWIW, not that I really expect the Dems would be any better at all. They'd probably be worse since they've latched on to the 9/11 Commission's recommendations as their security policy mantra.
I am not kidding in the slightest. I am dead serious about disabling the RFID in any future passport I might have, especially since there's no current plan to have the data encrypted.
Looks like Levi's wants to lose tons of business. That's their right, I guess.
And who is to say? At some point they may be implanted under the skin. I mean what better way to track child molesters, vanished children, terrorists, and eventually the average Joe. In future implanting an infant could be as common as circumcision, a Social Security Card is already required for newborns.
Why would that be a problem? Passports & visas are just plain passé these days; nobody uses them anymore. Just sneak in & out, like everyone else.
PS. And, to be exact, the 9/11 Commission recommended a uniform, scannable National ID that would include biometric identifiers and with a standardized nationwide database.
This is looking worse by the minute, glad I didn't put this article under "Humor". Who was on the 9-11 commission? I mean if this chip is taken to the extreme talk about profiling. I mean, isn't profiling a big PC no no?
This is looking worse by the minute, glad I didn't put this article under "Humor". Who was on the 9-11 commission? I mean if this chip is taken to the extreme talk about profiling. I mean, isn't profiling a big PC no no?
I had been admiring your remarkable case of apparent paranoia, until you posted this; now it all becomes clear.
Tailor-made for identity theft with the proper reader. Even encryption is a temporary fix, since "secure" documents are sold by the criminal bottom of our gene pool, who always gravitate to government jobs; e.g. drivers' licenses, Social Security cards and credit card data. How often do they bust another scumbag who sells the real thing?
There is nothing any more that is permanently secure. And simply asserting that we individually must keep track of every possible way to be scammed is a non-answer.
Is that how you beat the technology? How does one kill a RFID tag?
WTF!? What other purpose is there to use an RFID chip? Such a device can be made more rugged than anything that requires an electrical connection, but if there isn't any intelligence on board I see no advantage over a simple 2D barcode.
The only sure way I can think of is a strong EMP from a small nuke. Anybody got a source? Maybe Iran can start a side business here...
Isn't there any other way to send an EMP pulse? I wonder if it could start a cottage industry after the tagging was done: Pulse your pants!
If you guys want to be sure that the RFID is disabled, visit the local machine shop in your town. Odds are that they have a thing called a bearing heater. What its used for is heating up gears and bearings so they can be fitted onto shafts (when you heat metal, it expands and makes fitting easier). The bearing heater can turn a large, steel gear or bearing red hot by subjecting it to a very powerful oscillating magnetic field. This thing would probably fry in the blink of an eye; it'll take out the RFID tag quite handily.
It can be read, and stolen, by simple proximity. That's the essence of the critical difference. It need not be optically scanned.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.