In 2005, a Consultant - Ross Stapleton-Gray started the above research: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleprint/1765/-1/1. The project was called as "The Sorting Door Project". I am attracted with the mission of the project - now, it should have been published and highlighted to RFID stakeholders and the government - I assume. To quote his statement, written by Mark Robeti in the RFID journal of 28 July 2005 (note my bold and italicised words - the views were laudable):-
..." Stapleton-Gray says the short range of passive RFID tags will constrain RFID-based surveillance to narrow portals or doorways. Doorways are logical places to want to monitor individuals. For example, a company might want to install readers at a store entrance to prevent a potential criminal from entering, or to welcome a valued customer. If and when individuals are carrying or wearing RFID-tagged items, they’ll be visible to RFID readers, or interrogators. RFID readers, in turn, will be widely deployed for a host of applications, including antitheft monitoring in stores and libraries, facility access and supermarket checkout terminals.
The Sorting Door project will try to determine how possible RFID-based surveillance may be once RFID tags become ubiquitous "I'm expecting that research will range from the theoretical (imagine every door on a college campus instrumented; what could we say about activities on campus, and could we detect potential dangerous situations?) to the empirical (putting a reader in a public place and recording what goes by), subject to research guidelines on dealing with human subjects," Stapleton-Gray explains.
"Ideally, the Sorting Door project becomes a confederation of a lot of participants, contributing data and tools, so it's possible to understand how common—or not—tags are within different populations, including both U.S. and foreign, and the project accumulates a certain collective intelligence." Another of the project’s goals will be to examine how inferences might be made from tag data. "For example, if a reader sees the same unique ID on repeated occasions, that would allow a company or government agency to construct a John Doe dossier on an individual," he says. "The organization could then associate a individual with that dossier if, for example, the individual scanned for RFID tags also provided a credit card or driver’s license in making a purchase, or being carded when entering a bar. The next time that tag is read, one can infer that the same individual is present."
It would also be possible to read and use information about products to make additional inferences. If someone were to pass through a doorway carrying or wearing a size-four Donna Karan dress, for example, software could be set up to infer that the person was more likely to be a petite woman than a tall man.
"Some RFID proponents have been dismissive of privacy concerns, noting, for instance, that it might cost upwards of a trillion dollars for the U.S. government to pay to outfit every door in the country’s malls, bus stations, airports, commercial and government buildings and so on with RFID readers, then network them into a single surveillance grid," says Stapleton-Gray.
"But just as the Internet grew from a collective interest in interconnecting private pieces of what became a global network, pure self-interest might lead to a similar 'RFID Internet.' When a great many organizations have fielded RFID readers for their own applications, networking them and aggregating data for new purposes may be quite cost-effective." ...
Now, my next to-do-task is to contact the Consultant, ascertaining the outcome - if he is willingly to entertain my query.
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