How Much Privacy Do You Really Have?

Privacy. Just how much do you have now and how much should you expect to be allowed in a society that creates more ways each day to intrude on all aspects of your life? It's the job of Canada's privacy commissioner to address those concerns and to inform the public about violations. But Canada's commissioner does not have sufficient powers or funds necessary to investigate those concerns.

Privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart's report demands more power for the privacy commissioner's office, such as the authority to enter private sector companies to monitor if they're complying with privacy law.

"Concern among Canadians about their loss of privacy and the misuse of their personal information has never been greater," Stoddart wrote in the report, which was tabled Tuesday.

Her report focused on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, a law that sets out how the private sector can collect, use or disclose personal information. The law applies to sectors that include retail, airlines, banks, telecommunications and publishing companies.

Of particular concern is the use of RFID tags. And just what do those intrusive little devices do? According to this Calgary Herald editorial:

Canadian companies have begun implanting radio chips in various products that can monitor customers' purchasing habits. They can even check on what happens to grocery items, clothing and other goods when people take them home. The chips can also send back info that tells store owners such things as what goes into a customer's cart and what goes back on the shelf, and even which store aisles the customer prefers.
[...]
Either the chips should be banned outright or products containing them should be labelled so that consumers who don't wish to be spied upon have the choice to avoid them.

Doesn't that just make you want you to head to your local store and fiddle with their stats by grabbing items off the shelves and replacing them numerous times? I think I'll spend some time doing that on my next trip for groceries.

According to Wiki, the technology behind RFID chips has actually been around since the 1920s:

In 1945 Léon Theremin invented an espionage tool for the Soviet government which retransmitted incident radio waves with audio information. Even though this device was a passive covert listening device, not an identification tag, it has been attributed as the first known device and a predecessor to RFID technology. The technology used in RFID has been around since the early 1920s according to one source (although the same source states that RFID systems have been around just since the late 1960s).

"Espionage" - that's exactly what it is.

Most concerns revolve around the fact that RFID tags affixed to products remain functional even after the products have been purchased and taken home, and thus can be used for surveillance and other nefarious purposes unrelated to their supply chain inventory functions. Although RFID tags are only officially intended for short-distance use, they can be interrogated from greater distances by anyone with a high-gain antenna, potentially allowing the contents of a house to be scanned at a distance, something distinctly Orwellian in nature. Even short range scanning is a concern if all the items detected are logged in a database every time a person passes a reader, or if it is done for nefarious reasons (e.g., a mugger using a hand-held scanner to obtain an instant assessment of the wealth of potential victims). With permanent RFID serial numbers, an item leaks unexpected information about a person even after disposal; for example, items that are resold or given away can enable mapping of a person's social network.

Although RFID chips can be used for useful purposes, these facts ought to be of concern to anyone thinking about their personal privacy since the issue obviously transcends the grocery store example provided above.

I wonder how many RFID chips I have in my house and I sure would like to know who's monitoring their every move. Our privacy commissioner deserves every opportunity to investigate on our behalf. She's the only one who can truly let us know how our lives are being intruded upon every single day. Don't count on a big business friendly Conservative government to act though. That might piss off some of their biggest donors.

You can read the full text of the privacy commissioner's report here.