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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
C&RL News, May 2005
Vol. 66, No. 5
Dear Editor:
Your January 2005 article, “Considering RFID: Benefits, limitations, and best practices,” by Laura J. Smart, both overstates RFID’s supposed benefits and minimizes RFID’s disastrous downsides and the strong, articulate opposition to RFID use in libraries.
The article identifies numerous individual proponents of RFID, yet does not name any individual opposition spokespersons and does not provide any detail about, or summary of, the specific objections raised by opponents. These include concerns strongly expressed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) about the surveillance society that each RFID implementation is helping to advance. The issue of potential health risks to library users and staff from Radio Frequency Radiation utilized by RFID wireless scanners is not addressed, nor does the article consider how existing “best practices” do not satisfactorily address privacy threats.
The article asserts RFID’s supposed “potential to reduce repetitive stress injuries [RSI] for circulation staff,” citing what was said by one library at “recent public hearings”—but omits the questions that have been raised about the lack of documented evidence of a connection between existing checkout methods and RSI, and the lack of hard evidence that RFID systems have reduced RSI. Converting to self-service checkout can be done with existing bar code technology, if desired, without converting to RFID.
Regarding another claimed benefit, the article does not disclose the proponent’s vendor connection, even though the cited Web site clearly does so, stating, “Birgit Lindl, from Bibliotheca RFID Library Systems, reports . . . .” Additionally, the article also omits noting that Lindl’s claimed 85 percent labor savings at Mastics-Moriches Community Library apparently came from a brief test measuring check-in and check-out time for media items only—a limited measurement that represents just a small part of RFID-related activities and a fraction of the typical library’s circulation.
The article downplays a big downside: a huge RFID security hole. Any library that depends on RFID technology to prevent loss or theft is wide open to massive—and completely undetected—losses. The article states, “Boss reports that some tags can be blocked by wrapping them in household foil.” But the actual citation reads, “Any item in the RFID system can be compromised if a visitor wraps the protected material in ordinary household foil to block the radio signal.” (emphasis added)
When the article asks rhetorically, “If only the bar code information is there, how could the adversary violate a patron’s freedom to read?” it unfortunately ignores the refutation provided by some of the author’s own sources. Tracking a tag’s presence at selected points, and the presumably associated person, can be accomplished with existing portable or doorway readers without knowing the title of the book, and the connection between bar code and title or borrower can be made in a variety of ways, certainly by government entities legally able to access library databases/records.
Perhaps most egregiously, the article does not seriously consider the option of librarians rejecting RFID outright and standing with the growing number of organizations like the ACLU and EFF in their efforts to protect against the very real threats posed by this technology. The RFID “controversy” does not stem alone from the “potential of RFID technologies to erode privacy and civil liberties,” as stated, but from RFID’s actual ability to do so, right now, using existing, commercially available technology.
Your readers deserve a fuller and more open discussion of this important issue.
—Peter Warfield, executive director, Library Users Association
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