Are Walmart’s ‘Smart Tags’ an Invasion of Privacy?

The way Walmart sees it, its plan to begin putting electronic identification tags on a number of men’s clothing items is a way to instantly track inventory and make sure it always has exactly what its customers are looking for.

But for privacy advocates, the implanting of radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips in men’s jeans, underwear and socks is an invasion of privacy and a cause for serious concern. According to The Associated Press, the items will have removable “smart tags” on them that can be read from a distance by Walmart workers with hand-held scanners. Their scans will instantly identify which sizes are running low and tell the worker if more garments are available in the stock room.

While Walmart -- which plans to eventually deploy the tags on all its merchandise -- sees the technology as a time-saver and boon to shoppers, privacy advocates like Katherine Albrecht of the Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering say it is the first step of a frightening revolution that could allow Walmart to track the movements of customers in some border states like Michigan and Washington. Both states use licenses with RFID tags to ease border crossing. Albrecht fears stores could scan data from driver’s licenses and from in-store purchases and combine it with other personal information without the consumer’s knowledge.

Walmart says it is aware of such concerns and plans to educate customers about the RFID tags with in-store videos and signs and to put the devices in removable tags, and not embedded in the clothes.

Are Walmart’s ‘Smart Tags’ an Invasion of Privacy?