[LINK] Airport to tag passengers

Geoff Ramadan gramadan at umd.com.au
Mon Oct 16 11:49:10 AEST 2006


Karl Auer wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-10-15 at 22:12 +1000, Geoffrey Ramadan wrote:
>> surface appears to conform to the 4 basic RFID privacy resolutions (from 
>> the world's data protection and privacy commission)
>> 1) data not linked to personal information
>> 2) person fully informed
>> 3) only use data for what it was intended for
>> 4) able to delete or disable RFID tag
> 
> Are these the only four?!? What about a person's choice not to take
> part?


The world's data protection and privacy commission only come up with four.

The right not to take part is a given. He can choose to follow the Airports 
procedures or he can go to another airport.



> 
>> Again in this Airport tag example, the Technologist, the Airport 
>> Authorities, Consultants, Enforcement Agencies and most likely the 
>> Government would have been all been involved in this project. Each 
>> should have considered any privacy issues. They most likely did and 
>> found no objection!
> 
> Hm. Conspicuous absence from the list - passengers. And it's a pretty
> pious hope that the groups you mention there are likely to have
> considered any privacy issues except from the perspective of how to
> evade, avoid or neutralise them.


They are in fact protecting and considering the rights of passengers, that its 
whole purpose: their right to safe travel.

Unfortunately in order to do this, they need to extend on peoples rights.



> 
>> “(privacy).. Is not one of either using RFID or respecting customer 
>> privacy. It’s a question of striking the right balance between achieving 
>> business goals and respecting customer privacy rights” - Elliot Maxwell 
>> chairman EPCglobal’s International Policy Advisory Council.
>> i.e. finding the balance is a problem.
> 
> There is no balance to find between things you MUST do and things you
> WOULD LIKE to do. If a person has rights in law, then a company cannot
> seek a "balance" in any way at all. Those rights must be respected,
> period.


Of course, the law must be obeyed. I would not suggest otherwise.



> 
> The above quote suggests that privacy rights and business goals are
> somehow the same kind of thing, equal but different. The suggestion is
> in the framing of the statement itself, which places the two thing son
> the same level, in the same category, then begs the question of the
> possibility and desirability of "balance".
> 
> This is a similar technique to that used by the pro-smoking lobby, which
> likes to suggest that a smoker's right to produce smoke is some how the
> same kind of thing as a non-smokers right not to breathe it. In fact
> these are *fundamentally* different classes of things, and to suggest a
> "balance" between them is evidence of stupidity at best, deviousness at
> worst. In the above quote, I think the latter is far more likely.
> 
> I find it objectionable to place business interests on the same level as
> privacy rights at all, and it is telling that Maxwell does. Says a lot
> about what he really thinks about privacy.


I think he is being honest.

The reality is that Business DO want more information about their customers and 
potential customers. In order to extract this information they want to ask 
questions that are private in nature.

Customer/Business already do this now. Business will continue to push the 
envelope, which has led to privacy laws protecting consumers.

He is just stating the obvious by trying to find a balance.


> 
>> “In a society based on anarchy, it is possible to imagine anything. But 
>> we live in a civilised society, in which both common sense and the rule 
>> of law prevail.” - Interview from Professor Peter Cole April 8 2004. 
>> (RFID Physicists)
> 
> This is an apparently meaningless truism. You may to be using it to
> imply that NOT accepting a "balance" between business interests and
> privacy rights would be tantamount to anarchy. If not, what the heck DO
> you mean?

What he means is:
In the normal mode of operation of extreme privacy advocates is to use 
miss-information about the capability of technologies, and to come up with 
extreme examples of how privacy can be invaded, which would only be plausible in 
a world based on anarchy.

Reg
Geoffrey Ramadan


> 
> Regards, K.
> 



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