Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Tracking Humans Through the RFID Ecosystem

ZDNet Asia reports that a project called RFID Ecosystem, where researchers give RFID tags to 50 voluntary participants to put on either themselves on their belongings, is in the works.

The location of the tags will be recorded every five seconds, saved to a database and published to Web pages, ZDNet reports. The tracking, facilitated by 200 antennas, will be constrained to the computer science building within the university.

"Our goal is to ask what benefits can we get out of this technology and how can we protect people's privacy at the same time," UW associate professor Magda Balazinska said in a statement. "We worry that these technologies are being implemented too quickly, and with this system we want to explore it in a controlled environment, to inform the public and policymakers about issues we might face."

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