Originally published January 18 2004
RFID tags offer tremendous benefits to grocery shoppers
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Here's a story of a grocery store that is exploring new technologies to
help make the consumer shopping experience easier and, ultimately, less
expensive. It's great technology that offer is it an exciting
convenience to shoppers: simply scan your product as you place them in
your shopping cart, and when you're ready to leave the store, is no need
to go through a checkout line at all. This system combines technologies
in areas of visual recognition, barcode scanning, and of course, RFID
tags. And this is where things start to get a little crazy: many
privacy advocates are increasingly concerned about the use of these
radio tags in commercial environments, and they are fighting the effort
by raising privacy concerns. They've already targeted Wal-Mart, and
chances are that they're going to fight every RFID rollout, no matter
what the name of the retailer or grocery chain. Yet as much as I am a
strong advocate of personal privacy, I fail to see any serious risk from
these RFID tags. These radio tags simply help stores like Wal-Mart, or
grocery chains like the one in this story, manage inventory efficiently
and offer important conveniences to the shopper or consumer. These
radio tags have no way to know anything about you is a person, and they
don't transmit anything other than product information. In fact I'm far
more concerned about the privacy implications of the frequent shopper
grocery discount cards, which link foods and items you purchase to a
personal profile record that can be used for future marketing. The use
of RFID tags, on the other hand, has no requirement to be tied to any
information about you as a person, and thus it is potentially far more
private than the frequent shopper grocery discount cards. In fact, I'd
say that RFID is good technology that will benefit retailers and
consumers, and ultimately lower the cost to both parties.
BRAINY CART: The personal shopping assistant not only weighs and scans
your items, it also tracks your shopping habits.
Metro Group unveiled a scaled-down version of its Extra Future Store
in New York.
NEW YORK - At this grocery store, there's no need for a conveyor belt
at the checkout counter because customers can scan and bag their
groceries as they shop.
Metro Group, the world's fifth-largest retailer, unveiled a
scaled-down version of the store last week at the National Retail
Federation's annual convention in New York.
While some elements of the technology have been tested in scattered
U.S. retail stores, no one has embarked on anything as ambitious or all
inclusive.
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