Danish Hearing on RFID

On 24 November 2004 in Denmark a hearing was held on RFID and pervasive computing. During the hearing, a first draft of an industry code of conduct (drafted by Danish Industry, The Danish Consumer Council and the Danish Trade and Service Association) was presented, together with a report on the technical and legal challenges and lacunas.

The debate at the conference focussed at concerns for the optimistic (read privacy naive) approach towards privacy implications of RFID, especially with regard to new means of extensive storing, profiling and exchanging personal data. Representatives from the Danish Industry and others stressed that as long as chips are de-activated upon shop exit, the public should not be overly worried. Representatives from the Consumer council and The Danish Institute for Human Rights stressed the extensive and invasive individual mapping this could lead to. They recommended that privacy threats and compliance are more seriously addressed, and that Denmark should pay more attention to international developments and concerns.

The hearing was a follow-up to a ministerial report on Pervasive Computing from 2003. The report recommends that further analysis must be conducted with regard to the ICT security aspects of pervasive computing, including RFID.

The hearing was organised by the National Council for IT-security (Rådet for IT-sikkerhed) and the Danish Data Protection Agency (Datatilsynet).

Extracts from the report (in English)
http://www.rfits.dk/English.3349.0.html

Report about the hearing (in Danish)
http://www.rfits.dk/N_r_chippen_f_lger_o.3346.0.html

(Contribution by Rikke Frank Joergensen, EDRI-member Digital Rights Denmark)