European Forum for Science and Industry
Limited progress in the deployment of the RFID tags in the retail sector
Following the European Commission Recommendation on the data protection, privacy and security aspects of RFID-enabled applications (May 2009), the JRC and the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT) have studied the best available techniques to deactivate tags at the point of sale in the retail sector. The study concludes that the implementation of RFID technology is still limited and that few operators are fully implementing the recommendation foreseeing the deactivation of the tags.
The report highlights possible explanations: low public acceptance, relative high price of RFID tags, difficult environments in some sectors (for instance in the textile production in which high temperatures and chemicals are present) and the hesitation of the industry and retailers to deploy the use of tags, as the recommendation introduces some constraints (deactivation or preliminary Privacy Impact Assessment).
