Moderated by Jen King, Masters Candidate, UC Berkeley School of Information

Today, your cell phone or PDA may be the only devices you carry that can reveal your location. With the development of RFID [Radio Frequency Identification] enabled products, that will soon change, as items as diverse as your government-issued ID to your shoes are implanted with RFID chips. Depending upon who you ask, this future is either a boon for managing supply chains and authenticating people and products, or represents a privacy and security threat of epic proportions.

In this BOF, we will explore the intersection of hype and reality with regards to RFID technology. We will briefly review two case studies demonstrating how the U.S. Government is currently implementing RFID (the new e-Passport, and the US-VISIT I-94 program), specifically addressing the privacy and security risks, technical limitations, and human usability considerations of each project. We will use these case studies as a framework for discussing the promises and risks of RFID, with the goals of giving participants an understanding of the state of the art of the technology today, as well as the risks of designing location-aware technologies.

Attendees may wish to review the following material prior to the BOF session:
US-VISIT RFID Fact Sheet
US E-Passport FAQ
Electronic Frontier Foundation’s RFID Page
Electronic Privacy Information Center’s RFID Page
Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s RFID Fact Sheet