Fred Willard

This article was from http://www.livebinders.com/edit/index/283368 and is called WalMart Radio Tags to Track Clothing.  This article is about WalMart and how they are planning on putting small RFID chips in their clothing to be able to track inventory better, faster, and easier.  Say a section on the shelf of jeans was low, you could point your scanner at it, and find out what size and how many have been sold.  While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages, they can't be turned off, and they are trackable. Some privacy advocates hypothesize that unscrupulous marketers or criminals will be able to drive by consumers' homes and scan their garbage to discover what they have recently bought.  With every technology there is something and someone that is able to hack it and steal people’s stuff.  Where in this case, burglars can find out what they recently bought, to see if the house is right to break into or not.  They also worry that retailers will be able to scan customers who carry new types of personal ID cards as they walk through a store, without their knowledge.  According to smart-tag experts dismiss Big Brother concerns as breathless conjecture, but activists have pressured companies.  But in the real sense of things, a similar pilot program at American Apparel Inc. in 2007 found that stores with the technology saw sales rise 14.3% compared to stores without the technology, according to Avery Dennison Corp., a maker of RFID equipment.  Even though these chips are not able to be turned off, you are able to just cut the tag off of your clothing, because that’s where the RFID chip would be located.  Several other U.S. retailers, including J.C. Penney and Bloomingdale's, have begun experimenting with smart ID tags on clothing to better ensure shelves remain stocked with sizes and colors customers want.  With this advance in technology, our country will be able to grow stronger, be more powerful, and have more knowledge.