BPM Today: NewsFactor Network - Data Analytics - Privacy Fears Haunt RFID Rollouts

“‘Many so-called benefits can be achieved just by using bar codes or similar technology. You don’t need a technology that can be read at a distance and without the customer knowing,’ says privacy advocate Rena Tangens. … Speaking at a roundtable at CeBIT in Hanover, privacy campaigner Rena Tangens, organiser of the Big Brother Awards in Germany, said that she could not see “a positive aspect of RFID” for consumers or citizens.”

Rena Tangens is an artist, privacy advocate and founder of FoeBud. From V2 in Holland:

“Rena Tangens, artist and networking pioneer, lives and works in Bielefeld, Germany. Her works bring together diverse practices such as experimental film, video and free radio. She founded the gallery and art project “Art d´Ameublement” together with colleague padeluun in 1984. She has been active online since 1987, and she brought the first modem to the international art exhibition Documenta (1987). Rena Tangens is co-founder of the association FoeBuD e.V., the Bionic bbs and the independent networks Z-Netz and CL (Germany) and Zamir Transnational Network (set up during the war in former Yugoslavia, 1992). She is curator of the ongoing monthly culture and technology event, Public Domain, since 1987. In collaboration with FoeBuD, she published the first manual on PGP encryption in German language. Since 2000, she organises and is jury member of the Big Brother Awards in Germany.”

Mrs. Tangens comments indicate that like CASPIAN’s Katherine Albrecht, she generally opposes the use of RFID tags at the item level. Judging by the success of the Metro Group boycott organized by the two women and their respective groups, Mrs. Tangens is emerging as a force to be dealt with for European companies investigating RFID.