Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) is a rapidly expanding technology that uses tiny microchips to track items from a distance. These RFID microchips have earned the nickname “spychips,” because each contains a unique identification number, like a Social Security number for things, that can be read silently and invisibly by radio waves.

Over 40 of the world's leading privacy and civil liberties organizations have called for a moratorium on chipping individual consumer items because the technology can be used to track people without their knowledge or consent.

Now Levi Strauss & Co. is violating the call for a moratorium on item-level RFID by testing spychipping its clothing. What's more, the company is refusing to disclose the location of its U.S. test.

Jeffrey Beckman, Director of Worldwide and U.S. Communications for Levi Strauss, confirmed his company's chipping program in an email exchange, saying “a retail customer is testing RFID at one location [in the U.S.]...on a few of our larger-volume core men's Levi's jeans styles.” However, he refused to name the location.

“Out of respect for our customer's wishes, we are not going to discuss any specifics about their test,” he said. Beckman also confirmed the company is tagging Levi Strauss clothing products, including Dockers brand pants, at two of its franchise locations in Mexico.

CASPIAN was tipped off to the activity by a mention in an industry publication. The article indicated Levi Strauss was looking for additional RFID “test partners.”

There is reason to believe that the companies are keeping mum about the U.S. test location in order to prevent a consumer backlash. Clothing retailer Benetton was hit hard by a consumer boycott led by CASPIAN in 2003 when the company announced plans to embed RFID tags in its Sisley line of women's clothing. The resulting consumer outcry forced the company to retreat from its plans and disclaim its intentions.

Levi Strauss can little afford similar problems with consumers. It has suffered through several years of declining sales as younger consumers gravitate to new brands. The company has also been hurt by Wal-Mart's decision to cut back on inventory in a bid to shore up its own declining sales. While Levi Strauss says that its current RFID trials use only external RFID “hang tags” that can be clipped from the clothes and the focus is on inventory management, not customer tracking, the company isn't guaranteeing how it will use RFID in the future.

Companies like Levi Strauss are painting their RFID trials as innocuous. But this technology is extraordinarily dangerous. There is a reason why we have asked companies not to spychip clothing. Few things are more intimately connected with individuals than the clothes they wear.

Once clothing manufacturers begin applying RFID to hang tags, the floodgates will open and we’ll soon find these things sewn into the hem of our jeans.

The problem with RFID is that it is tracking technology, plain and simple.

http://www.spychips.com/ http://www.nocards.org/

Albrecht and McIntyre point out that tracking people through the things they wear and carry is more than mere speculation. In their book Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID, they reveal sworn patent documents that describe ways to link the unique serial numbers on RFID-tagged items with the people who purchase them.

One of the most graphic examples is IBM's “Identification and Tracking of Persons Using RFID-Tagged Items.” In that patent application, IBM inventors suggest tracking consumers for marketing and advertising purposes.

“That's enough to steam most consumers,” says McIntyre. “But IBM's proposal that the government track people through RFID tags on the things they wear and carry should send a cold chill down our spines.”

IBM inventors detail how the government could use RFID tags to track people in public places like shopping malls, museums, libraries, sports arenas, elevators, and even restrooms. “Make no mistake,” McIntyre adds. “Today's RFID inventory tags could evolve into embedded homing beacons. Unchecked, this technology could become a Big Brother bonanza and a civil liberties nightmare.”

Albrecht and McIntyre, Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID (Nelson Current, 2005)

“a chip in the old block”

Scott Silverman, Chairman of the Board of VeriChip Corporation, is promoting the company's human tracking device as a way to identify immigrants and “guest workers.” He appeared on the Fox News Channel on May 16, the morning after President Bush called for high-tech measures to clamp down on Mexican immigrants.

The VeriChip is a glass encapsulated RFID tag that is injected into the flesh to uniquely number and identify people. The tag can be read silently and invisibly by radio waves. It is also being marketed as a way to access secure areas, link to medical records, and as a payment device when associated with a credit card.

Tommy Thompson, former Secretary of Health and Human Services, is on the VeriChip board. He said on national TV July 11, 2005, that all Americans should get chipped as a way to link to their medical records. He also suggested the Chip could replace military dog tags, and a spokesman boasted that the company had been in talks with the Pentagon.