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November 2, 2006
Checkpoint Systems lays off RFID staff
The RFID industry is hurting. Checkpoint Systems, Inc., the guys who want to hide RFID tags in the soles of people's shoes (see their website image above) and who put spychips in Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch clothing labels, has apparently had a hard time selling its RFID systems. The company has "scaled back its RFID efforts and laid off members of its RFID team" and "will no longer sell complete library inventory-management systems or RFID readers" after reporting a decline in 2nd quarter revenues over 2005.
Source: "Checkpoint Refocuses RFID Effort," RFID Journal, Oct 23, 2006
But don't rejoice just yet. A followup (damage control?) story three days later acknowledged that the company has ceased funding its team of five RFID experts and their R&D efforts, but says it is still "excited about RFID" and will continue to sell all of its current RFID products, including library inventory-management systems.
Disturbingly, the one part of the company's RFID program that will apparently continue to receive funding is the development of dual-purpose anti-theft tags coupled with RFID tags. If Checkpoint pulls this off, those ubiquitous little stickers on products that set off the alarm gates in stores will double as item-level RFID spychips with unique ID numbers. These can be linked in a database with shoppers' personal data, enabling the tags to silently transmit information about the product and the purchaser to readers anywhere in the envcironment for years after the sale. Pass through the gates on your way into the store, and your shoes could report their age, what you paid for them, and most importantly, your presence.
Checkpoint CEO George Off says, "When our customers are ready to go to RFID, they'll want those RFID systems to not only perform inventory tracking and other functions, they'll want the systems to perform security functions, too. They won't want to put two tags on one product." This is exactly the scenario we fear -- that RFID tags would be intentionally hidden in everything we own. It's our job as consumers to make sure Checkpoint's customers are never ready to adopt item-level RFID tagging.
- Katherine Albrecht
Posted by Katherine Albrecht at November 2, 2006 7:40 AM
Comments
http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,1938474,00.html
Comments from UK regarding global information collection via Google.
Posted by: D at November 3, 2006 10:00 AM
this is good or bad news?
Posted by: www.gaorfid.com at December 5, 2006 10:13 AM