For anyone that's been paying attention, Shiny and I began boycotting Walmart many, many years ago (8? Maybe longer), primarily due to their use of RFID to individually track pallets of merchandise. Basically the fear was that they would start putting RFIDs in actual consumer goods. The problem with that is that RFIDs are individually identifiable and they never 'turn off' because they're passive. So, basically, let's say you're wearing a Walmart pair of pants and you walk through an RFID scanner (could be in a door, could be anywhere, and you'd have no way of knowing). Not only would they say "You're wearing Levi's bell bottom pants", but "You're wearing Levi's bell bottom pants number 25324 that we sold to Joe Blow on 13 August, 2009 and you've been to these stores and you bought these other items and you spend a lot of time in the women's undergarment department"... etc etc. Individually identifiable.
Well, it is now a reality. Walmart is now adding RFID tags to individual items.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/walm ... t-privacy/
The article is a little light on details and seems to just assume that these tags will be external to the clothes and removed on purchase... but there's absolutely nothing to stop people from sewing the RFID tags into a seam or something so it can't be removed. And, in fact, there's no way to tell it's even there unless you have an RFID reader/detector.
*edit*
Ok, the source article actually does specify the RFIDs will be 'removable'.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... ts_news_us
I still don't trust it.
