RFID is a technology that can be useful or misused, depending on one's perspective. Here in the People's Republic of San Francisco,
some folks are upset with the public library. That itself is not news -- the library administration has in recent years gone
out of its way to handle sensitive issues in an insensitive manner. But a plan to tag books with RFID chips has some privacy
activists absolutely wigged out.
As incredible as it may seem to those readers who know how I feel about Big Brother-like government behavior, I'm in favor
of chipping the books. Why? Well, like every other issue, it's all about whose ox is gored.
Twenty years ago, my college library had a policy of allowing juniors and seniors to reserve an open desk in the stacks and
check out books to the desk; these books couldn't be removed from the library without checking them out against the student
ID.
A couple of days before the Thanksgiving holiday, I found the books I would need for a paper that was due in early December,
checked them out to an open desk, and went home for the weekend. When I returned, the books were gone. Someone had filched
them, and because the library had more nooks and crannies than an English muffin, I knew I wasn't going to see them again.
It took a few months to get the library to stop badgering me about the books, adding insult to injury.
Had alma mater's library employed RFID tagging back then, I might have gotten the books back in time to finish the paper.
I certainly wouldn't have been going to the main desk every other week for the spring term explaining that no, the books hadn't
reappeared and that the staff would be more likely to come across them than I was.
Sometimes I wonder whether people stay up at nights thinking about conspiracy theories involving RFID, black helicopters,
and the FBI. Granted, civil liberties seem to be at a premium these days, but if anyone imagines that a library is going to
spend money on an RFID system that's capable of doing anything more than bleeping when one gets within a three-foot range
of the book being sought, they need to either start taking their meds or have the dosage re-evaluated.
I come down squarely with a foot in each camp: I want "automatic kill" for the RFID tags on the goods I purchase. For those
I borrow -- library books, DVDs, and so on -- I'll settle for what amounts to an "automatic zombie" mode. This would deactivate
RFID outside the owner's premises while allowing the tag to re-enable itself on re-entry. That's a reasonable compromise.
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