By JO ANNE KILLEEN .
As if shopping for new clothes wasn’t stressful enough, soon there will be talking mirrors in the dressing rooms. Well, they might not talk, but they will be able to communicate.
These mirrors (some are called MagicMirrors) receive signals from a tag affixed to the hanger or whatever you might have in your hand and help you find matching accessories or outfits.
Technology has advanced to the point where tags on items in stores have a code embedded in them that transmits signals, via radio waves, to a reader that links with a database with all kinds of information.
Some Wisconsin legislators are trying to prevent this technology from infringing on personal privacy before the technology becomes prevalent.
The information received by the reader can be tossed around in a company’s database to send back to you messages about, well, anything. The new technology is supplanting bar coding of items, but up until now, the technology has been used to track inventory while in shipping and distribution channels.
The technology, called radio frequency identification, or RFID, is an emerging product for which business strategists are saying the early birds stand to gain market share for implementing the technology.
RFID has been in use by manufacturers and shippers of all kinds of goods from oil to food as a cost-efficient method of tracking the location of inventory and monitoring shelf life of things like food.
One major retail company, Wal-Mart, mandates all its suppliers use the technology. The Department of Defense also mandates its use by all of its suppliers. But the tags are disabled before the merchandise leaves the store, Wal-Mart officials have been quoted as saying.
The Bush administration has proposed putting an RFID chip in each soldier that would replace the traditional dog tags. In recent years, veterinarians and other animal caregivers have implanted chips to track animals.
The health care and pharmaceutical companies use chips to track drugs and medical supplies, ensuring they are kept in environmentally sensitive locations when indicated, such as organ transplants or blood being kept cold. Mega-stores are putting RFID chips in shopping carts to help shppers locate items they are looking for without going up and down each aisle.
One Alzheimer’s facility in Florida is implanting RFID chips in 200 volunteers who are clients of the organization in case they wander, get lost, or confused or hurt and wind up in an emergency room. Doctors at the area hospitals would be able to read the chips and know whom to contact as well as the person’s medical history.
A public beach in New Jersey that charges admission provides a wristband to each paying beachcomber. Security then will be able to use a reader from several feet away to locate a chip instead of confronting people to find out if they’ve paid.
Major conferences provide name badges to convention goers that have chips embedded in them. As the visitor travels the exhibitions, readers can detect the chip, sort through the data base of names and know that Ms. Jones is from Wisconsin and has an interest in such and such a subject. A television or computer monitor displays items of interest to that particular person (if she’s still standing within 10 feet or so) or tells her who else at the conference might share that interest.
There are some who believe RFID technology, if it were more widespread, could have saved the produce industry millions of dollars during the spinach contamination crisis and could in the future reduce spoilage of products worldwide.
Retailers are beginning to catch on to new uses for the technology that has saved supply and distribution chains millions of dollars for years. Actually, the new technology is supposed to make shopping easier.
Say you go into a dressing room with a blouse or shirt you want to try on. An RFID tag on the item will signal a receiver placed in the mirror or possibly some other device, route that signal to the store’s inventory of merchandise and project on a screen for you more merchandise that you can pair with the item so that you can see an entire ensemble.
The projection shows possible pairings of clothing, jewelry, shoes, hats, and other accessories in stock. Just touch the screen on the item you like and a signal is sent to the sales staff that goes to the racks to find one in your size and brings it to you.
Retailers are also experimenting with customer loyalty RFID tags. Instead of (or in addition to) being attached to retail items, the tag would be embedded on what’s called a loyalty card.
The card’s signal could be read by a store’s receiver as soon as you walk in the door and a personal greeting to you could be flashed on a display board, your coffee might already be in process by the time you get to the counter, your favorite newspaper placed at your favorite seat.
Alternatively, the card could have your purchasing history that allows the staff to be able to customize their suggestions to suit your tastes and automatically credit all your purchases to your checking or credit card account.
One store in Columbus, Ohio, has started experimenting with the technology in order to improve customer relationship management. Upscale stores in other places like Hong Kong and Latin America already provide customers with the ability to shop without having to find a salesperson. Not only can the system inform customers of different ways to mix and match outfits, it can also provide a back story on the item informing them about the history of the garment, where it was made (in more detail than ‘Made in China’).
This might be valuable information for those concerned their purchases supported sweatshops of low-paid workers. The back-story might be finding out if any celebrities like athletes or entertainers are wearing the same clothes. That would fit into the craze of celebrity endorsements of clothing sought after by millions of consumers.
Retailers are betting this new technology is also attractive to customers who don’t want to be hassled by salespeople, who don’t want to wander around the store looking for a matching blouse or skirt or pants. They say they are also appealing to the need of people to feel they belong who might be made to feel he or she is getting personalized attention and that the store “knows my name.”
Privacy concerns
It’s that detailed knowledge at a personal level that troubles consumer privacy advocates and others. Groups in the United States and around the world are forming to stop the rise in the use of the chips, which some call “spychips.”
The four main privacy concerns are:
n That the purchaser of an item will not necessarily be aware of the presence of the tag or be able to remove it.
n The tag can be read at a distance without the knowledge of the individual.
n If a tagged item is paid for by credit card or in conjunction with use of a loyalty card, it might be possible to connect the identity of the purchaser.
n The EPCglobal system of tags create globally unique serial numbers for all products.
Some religious groups believe the chip, which the FDA approved for implantation in humans, is the “mark of the beast” (666) specifically mentioned in the book of Revelation.
In 2006, Wisconsin became the first state to enact legislation prohibiting the placement of RFID tags or chips on persons without their knowledge or consent. On Aug. 14, Wisconsin Rep. Marlin Schneider, D-Wis. Rapids, introduced legislation prohibiting the sale of consumer goods or certain farm products that contain an RFID tag, unless the seller renders the tag inoperable before the purchaser takes possession of the item.
“Where does 1984 start and end?” asked Mike Schoenfeld, legislative aid to Schneider. “We’d rather err on the more conservative in terms of liberty. Structure will come.
“Voluntary chips are fine, Schoenfeld continued. “You just can’t coerce anyone, even child molesters.”
Retailers who have experimented with the technology have seen a 30 percent increase in sales. While the systems are expensive, they are saving companies much more than the investment.
They are also using RFID to manage shoplifting. One cannot leave a store with RFID tags that are still active or it will set off an alarm.
The proposed legislation does not address what to do about merchandise with RFID chips already in consumers’ hands.
For example, depending on the manufacturer of a tire, consumers can purchase tires embedded with a chip that can be read by a diagnostic machine at a service shop and indicates to the mechanic the tires need to be replaced or balanced.
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