RFID & Standardisation

In my research, one of the boundaries that I am looking into is on standardisation of RFID in its frequencies and tags across these jurisdictions: South Korea, Japan, Europe and Asia Pacific. Special cross reference will be made to the United States' contours. Prior to zooming into these countries/continents, Australia has had made a commendable progress last January 2009 on its RFID standardisation. The question that I am pondering (at this juncture), is how and why, to what extent, these standards co-exist with data protection and privacy? It would be particularly engaging if I could look and deal with case-by-case scenarios of RFID applications that are being deployed in various industries as against the background of standards. Maybe IBM or MOTOROLA RFID-based solutions shall provide some general technical guidance.

The awaiting birth?

After 10 years, Malaysians are awaiting the birth of the Malaysia Personal Data Protection Bill, being an Act, soon. Now, it's in the second and third reading at Parliament. I predict it will be gazetted by end of this year, or perhaps, by the first quarter of 2010. Back in 2002, Professor Dr. Ida Madieha wrote a very interesting article on the Bill, by paraphrasing some of the relevant sections vis-a'-vis issues on e-commerce and privacy.

I fervently hope that the analysis and comments have been taken into consideration by the legislator and consultant. Once the Bill is ready to kick-off, there will be potential compliance costs. It is anticipated that organisations and companies are required to get ready with the potential transformation: internal compliance road shows, compliance costs, strategies and awareness for and to all Malaysian stakeholders on data protection. Particularly, the ICT and banking sectors. It's just the beginning for Malaysians.

Cursorily, a brief overview of other Asia Pacific countries on data protection and privacy is readable here (published by DLA Piper, as at March 2009).

Wondering how the Bill responds to RFID? (in Malaysia).

Tag Broker Model to protect privacy?

This paper is quite technical to comprehend. Nevertheless, it sounds interesting as to how such a model has been proposed to protect privacy within an RFID enabled setting. Briefly, this article discusses on such a tag broker model approach for an enabled Mobile RFID which is compatible with Near Field Communication (NFC). I am wondering whether is there any literature that touches on data protection and privacy issues in relation to NFC? Reason being: NFC, is an industry standard that results to the technical compatibility and operability, deriving from RFID. Or, maybe, it's a subset of RFID as well? Pondering.

RFID in youtube

This video is by the Metro group. Easy to be understood by a layman like me. This second video, is also interesting, with additional perspectives by privacy advocates in the US. I personally like this third video - practical and eye opening. This, on another hand, explains about microchip implantation. Medical technology has made this verichip useful as practised by this Harvard Doctor. Essentially, this looks like RFID has started to rule the world. Interestingly, this guy has guided viewer how to remove RFID chip from an Oyster card. That is cool. In the UK, this video looks informative. Themed as Big Brother Is Watching (it has 3 sequels). In a broader context, this video canvasses Britain's surveillance state, in general. Worth to watch.

RFID deployment was put on halt; the Philippine's case study

RFID, has been said as illegal and expensive. This is what the views that could be adduced from the people. Wondering whether the republic has considered data protection and privacy terms prior to implementation or anticipating the same in the future.

Mobile-RFID; a new hype?

This is an interesting move by RFID solutions architect; Mobile-RFID is now a hype.

RFID is a virus carrier too!

All technology has faults and flaws. RFID is no exception.

"Crawling" the Container

Oracle has shared it's case study on container's movement here. It's technologically impressive.

RFID = Access 2.0 (I like the notion)

It's interesting to equate RFID = Access 2.0 or perhaps (intriguingly) Ambient Intelligence (AmL = Access 2.0). The brief news explained, in a way.

Library RFID Kiosks

This is an interesting development on Library RFID Kiosks. , as BBC reported. In East Asia, HeiTech Padu Berhad (Malaysia) has had the prototype to be commercialised in Malaysia. Now, being packaged as it's suite of products.

22nd Schrodinger Lecture

Imperial College will host the 22nd Schrodinger Lecture. I have made a confirmed reservation to attend. My aim is to study the success and how it sparks other motivations in other areas of technology. The theme is on:

The world's nuclear future: built on material success.

Wallace Lecture at LSE

Being quite an alien to the European Union's history, I attempt to attend the coming Wallace Lecture at LSE next Monday. I look forward to understand the generic ideas so that it could assist my reading and research. Though not focussing that much on law, at least, there might be certain pointers that could be incorporated within my footnote essays (later).

ICC - The Annual Competition Law and Policy Lecture 2009

I will be attending this Competition Talk. I think, some of my reading and literature review (in a way), will touch generally on Competition. In the meantime, I will summarise the previous attended talk in Imperial Business School and this one by this Friday.

Thanks Kadir for letting me know on the Competition Talk.

A Talk by ex-IBM's CTO at Imperial Business School (13/10/09, 17:00-18:00)

I have registered and reserved myself for an interesting talk tomorrow (13 October 2009) at Imperial Business School, to be delivered by:Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, former Chief Technology Officer at IBM,. The topic captivates me to understand how innovation surpasses beyond the time reach and how stakeholders need to be very much responsive. I attempt to anticipate some useful pointers that may surround on issue of technology and regulations (generally). Although it's not a pure legal seminar, I think, it's worthy to look into different perspectives.

The abstract (as totally copied - for notification and educational purpose):

Over the past century, science and technology have been successfully applied to innovation in the industrial sector of the economy, leading to very high productivity and quality, and to the development of highly sophisticated and complex objects like airplanes, skyscrapers and microprocessors.

The services sector comprises between 70 - 80% of the GDP and jobs in advanced economies around the world. Services are ubiquitous across many sectors of the economy, e.g., finance, healthcare, retail, creative industries, business support, education and transportation and logistics. Advances in information technologies have enabled us to bring significant innovation to services and services industries, such as ATMs, reservation systems and supply chain management.

But, we have a long way to go in improving the productivity and quality of services, especially given their large and growing role in advanced, as well as emerging economies. As pointed out in a recent report by the Royal Society (Hidden wealth: the contribution of science to service sector innovation - July 2009), services are not easily visible in the economy, and their nature is not well understood. This makes it difficult for companies, policy makers and universities to support the kind of research and innovation programs in the services sector that have worked so well in the industrial sector.

The seminar will build on the recent Royal Society report. We will explore the differences between "classic" industrial sector innovation and innovation in the services economy. In particular, we will focus on the multi-disciplinary and collaborative nature of services innovation, and the new organizations and leadership structures it requires. We will illustrate the discussion with concrete examples from a variety of industries, including health care, learning, public sector and banking.

IBM Fellowship Awards 2009/2010

This is an interesting call for IBM Fellowship Awards 2009/2010 applications. Unsure whether interdisciplinary law research in RFID, data protection and privacy like what I am researching is eligible. I e-mailed them today and awaiting their revert. Hopefully, it's an okay.

Summer Internship in Berkman Center, Harvard

This is the copied version pasted here:-

Summer Internship Program 2010

For 10 weeks each summer The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University swings opens the doors of its big yellow house to welcome a new group of smart, talented, energetic full-time interns who are passionate about the Internet, democracy, intellectual property, media, politics, and a slew of other things. The interns team up with great projects like the Citizen Media Law Project, Cooperation, Digital Natives, Internet & Democracy, the OpenNet Initiative, StopBadware.org, and more, where they have an opportunity for deep and substantive involvement in our efforts.

Positions are available with most Berkman projects, and we're looking for people with a variety of interests and skill sets. While certain internships are only available to law students, many projects are looking for students enrolled in other types of programs, including undergraduate, graduate and PhD. programs.

Summer internship positions are full time (35 hours/week), and the summer program runs for 10 weeks from June 1 to August 15. While the positions are paid, please be forewarned that stipends may not be sufficient to cover living expenses in the Boston area. No other benefits are provided, therefore interns must make their own housing, insurance, and transportation arrangements.

The word "awesome" has been thrown around to describe our internships, but don't take our word for it. Zack McCune, a summer intern from 2008, had this to say: "it has been an enchanting summer working at the berkman center for internet & society. everyday, i get to hang out with some of the most brilliant people on the planet. we talk, we write (emails), we blog, we laugh, we play rock band. and when things need to get done, we stay late hyped on free coffee and leftover food. it is a distinct honor to be considered a peer among such excellent people. and i am not just talking about the fellows, staff, and faculty, though they are all outstanding. no, i mean my peers as in my fellow interns, who are almost definitely the ripening next generation of changemakers."

We know what you're thinking. Yes please. I want that. That sounds magical. Did I mention I'm really good at "Rock Band"?
Here's what you should do... To apply for a summer internship position, please send by the Friday, March 5, 2010:

a letter of interest, describing your skills and interests, and indicating the area of research and the Berkman projects in which you have interest;
a current version of your resume;
the contact information for two references (professional or academic)
to Berkman's community coordinator, Becca Tabasky, at rtabasky@cyber.law.harvard.edu

Feel free to be in touch if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing from you!!
Summer Intern Eligibility:* Summer interns are students enrolled in a undergraduate, graduate or PhD program of study.* Summer interns do not have to be affiliated with Harvard University.* We welcome summer interns from universities across the world, however we can not pay international students who have not yet received an undergraduate degree.

If you have questions about either academic year or summer internships, please contact Becca .
at the email address above.

I think, I have to start planning on this.

BILETA 2010

Call for papers: BILETA 2010
Hosted by the Faculty of Law, Centre for Legal Informatics (DEICL/SIL), at the University of Vienna, Austria
Theme: “Globalisation, Internet and the Law”

I will submit an abstract soon.

PhD research

Dear all,

I am now officially registered as a PhD candidate at: Institute of Computer and Communications Law, Centre of Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary, University of London. My supervisors are: Professor Ian Walden (Lead Supervisor) and Anne Flanagan (Second Supervisor). Will update some of my next discovery on RFID, privacy, technology & surveillance soon.

Cheers
Noris
London

RFID has reached animal tagging in Malaysia!

Sorry dearly blog, after almost nine (9) months of long absence.

Now, I am reactivating this blog, as frequent and as consistent as I could. By the way, realised that this Blog has reached it's one (1) year old of its existence. Happy too belated birthday. I promise not to making you as an abandoned child anymore. Promise.

Ok, back to official research stuff.

In Malaysia, RFID has now been used for tagging the livestock. Read this interesting stuff here. and here.

Some questions to ponder:-

i) Are there any technical regulations / standards governing RFID in Malaysia?

ii) How about ethical issues at hand [towards animal]? though sounds too far to think, as opposed to human beings, but animals are always a subject matter of experimental behaviour and model, for such a guinea pig technology to be deployed extensively in Malaysia?; and

iii) Will it be a successful deployment?

And time will tell, whether it is and it will...