RFID Privacy Happenings points to a news article in New Scientist that describes a system for monitoring elderly people and their daily habits with RFID. Wired News covered it as well. With the system, a person wears an RFID reader on their wrist and objects in the home are tagged. As they go about their daily routine and use or visit the objects, information about their activities is recorded and saved.
As an example, such a system could monitor how often you brush your teeth, take your prescription, drink some water or walk into a certain room. The system was developed by an Intel Research lab based in Seattle that focuses on Ubiquitous Computing. Their RFID reader came from Crossbow and Skyetek.
Obviously systems like these can be misused and lead to degraded personal privacy. The developers of the Intel system claim that such monitoring can allow elderly people to remain more independent with improved life quality. The system can theoretically monitor a person’s diet, how they take their medications and other activities that affect their health and well-being. With monitoring, an elderly person can stay home and out of institutional care longer. Since the system is distributed and automatic so it presumably reduces costs as well.
This tracking system could also monitor every time you eat a chocolate, open your liquor cabinet, pick up a cigarette or go to the toilet. The researchers might argue this is a good thing but if you’re being monitored, you might disagree.
Does this system open a Pandora’s Box of privacy issues? I wouldn’t go that far. It is key that such systems only be used on a voluntary basis. Since personal habits are being tracked secure information handling is critical as well. |
