Wal-Mart Radio Tags to Track Clothing .

Someone had already posted this and a former Wal-Mart assistant manager or manager (I forget which) came and posted a reply thought was very logical and informative. You may want to check that thread out. I would link it, but I'm too lazy to do the search.

Originally posted by marg6043

The article itself explain how this new and improved technology that uses radio waves can store information on discarded tags even if they are taken out of the garment and put in the trash.

No, not at all. It's in the garment packaging. When you put the packaging in the garbage, it goes to the dump, where they can store whatever they like buried a few feet in old newspapers.

Only what they're storing is nothing more than a UPC code.

If you're really worried that spies will drive by and discover you wear size 18 jeans, I guess it might be terrifying.

The concern is of how much information will be in the tags linked to the consumer, like consumer spending habits that can be trace every time the person walks into the store.

The tags don't contain anything about you. That would be pointless. They contain a description of the goods. By the way, every time you go to the store and use your card or a check, your spending habits can be logged. A few stores always do this - Walmart is one. It doesn't depend on RFID to do so, either. It's already happening.

Now the second problem is as "per article" that the new scanners can also read information from far away on people walking into the stores that carry already cards or driver licenses already with the same type of chips.

And as usual, "per article", you see that the non-technical journalist can't grasp that all RFID is not the same. You aren't likely to be carrying e-field cards that can be read from 'far away', unless you have a PASS card (not a passport) or an EDL, which is a border state drivers license that's intentionally distance readable so that you can drive through the border crossing without getting out. All the info that's on there is a serial number that's an index to the EDL database: there is no other info.

[edit on 26-7-2010 by Bedlam]

For anyone still interested, here is a Wal-Mart internal document about these new RFID tags (the only documentation currently available at the store level):

EPC Overview

Sorry the quality's not the best. I had to print it on a crappy work printer that was low on toner, then it got folded and put it a pocket, and scanned into .jpg by an equally crappy scanner.