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MIT-designed mini-surveillance coming to your neighborhood
Gillette is hiding tiny RFID [Radio Fequency ID] surveillance chips in the packaging of its shaving products. These spy tags can trigger photo taking of unsuspecting customers.
The tracking system uses sensors hidden under Gillette shelves to detect when products are picked up.Whenever a shopper picks up a packet of razor blades from a spy shelf—snap!—a hidden camera takes a closeup photo of the shopper's face. A second photo is snapped at the cash register to make sure the product is paid for. Gillette's spy shelves have been uncovered in England and we suspect they have been tested at various locations around the United States and other countries. The Gillette spy shelf and the associated hidden camera application were developed at the MIT Auto-ID Center, during the time that Gillette VP Dick Cantwell was the head of the Center's Board of Overseeers. This industry consortium has produced documents, pictures, and video promoting the use of Gillette "smart shelves" to take secret photos of unsuspecting customers. Attorney Katherine Albrecht wrote,"Since the Auto-ID Center's founding at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1999, it has… attracted funding from some of the largest consumer goods manufacturers in the world, and even counts the Department of Defense among its sponsors. In a mid-2001 pilot test with Gillette, Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, and Wal-Mart, the center wired the entire city of Tulsa, Oklahoma with radio-frequency equipment to verify its ability to track RFID equipped packages…. "Of course, government and law enforcement will be quick to use the technology to keep tabs on citizens, as well. The European Central Bank is quietly working to embed RFID tags in the fibers of Euro banknotes… If and when RFID devices are embedded in banknotes, the anonymity that cash affords in consumer transactions will be eliminated." www.nocards.org/