A CNET article, keyed to EPCglobal’s conference in Baltimore this week, speculates on the future schedule for of item-level tagging: “Privacy questions arise as RFID hits stores”
But I’m including this largely as an example of mediocre reporting. One development cited, a mandated deadline of 2007 for tagging of pharmaceuticals, is fairly old news. And while the article notes that:
“Retailers don’t have such a mandate but are tip-toeing that direction anyway. A Wal-Mart store in Dallas is already selling Hewlett-Packard printers and scanners with RFID tags on their boxes, said Elizabeth Board, executive director of the public policy steering committee for EPCglobal, organizer of the EPCglobal U.S. Conference 2004 trade show…
this is presumably directly related to the Wal-Mart case/pallet tagging mandate: for objects as large as printers, an item is a case. And post-purchase privacy implications of that aren’t much of an issue, since the tag will presumably be on the to-be-discarded box (and it’s not like people habitually wander around carring HP printers). So, no real surprises here…