I was very unhappy to discover that shoes now often have RFIDs built into soles. This + anti-theft RFIDs readers that are already deployed by the entry of most stores can allow to easily assign unique ids to shoppers.
Most anti-theft tags are not RFID and the gates are not full RFID readers. At least in Europe, vast majority I see are still based on simple resonators that get disabled on checkout. Effectively, the gates only provide a yes/no signal and can't be used for tracking.
Applied Science has a good video on how they work:
This is super cool. Was there any announcement or documentation for this?
We used a Cisco Meraki router once for a client and rigged it up to know who was in the office (for fun, to be aware that it could be done). It'd be nice to know the iPhone/iPad scramble themselves if possible.
Only if your phone is locked and it is looking for all open wifi networks. If you unlock it or it is connected to a particular wifi network this is not true.
I've heard that you can disable RFID readers (not tags, readers) with an appropriately-resonant coil and an EMP circuit.
I'm not sure if the same can be done to tags, but considering the size of the tiny electronics, and the fact that they are manufactured under the assumption they'll never need to be touched (aka, no CMOS spike tolerance), it might be trivially...
...wait. I just remembered about RFID alarm barriers in retail stores.
Well this is annoyingly difficult to discuss, then...
I draw the line where actions are taken. A discussion is not an action. Using a device illegally is, like for instance pulling the trigger of a gun with the evil intent of murder, or taking something that isn't yours.
another trick would be to pay for the shoes in cash; in this case they will not be able to link the RFID chip to your real identity. Cash payment is a very privacy friendly technology.
That's not the point - the point is being identified as an entity by a unique marker that the RFID tag gives off. It's still an anonymous entity, but it can be deanonymized by correlation... with your face via video or whatever.
Me neither (too lazy for that), but I know they are used and abused by people too. This leads to funny cases I heard of like a company specifying that some shoes are for "walking", not for "running", and refusing to refund them if you admit to running in them.
If it's "not unreasonable" for them to reject warranty claims if you run in shoes "not intended for running", does that mean it is reasonable to make a warranty claim on shoes "intended for fashion" if you're not picked up while wearing them?
"Wore these heels to six bars, didn't get hit on once. Please repair or refund."
Do you have a source for this? All I can find online is the occasional use of RFID for stock management or the odd marketing campaign. But nothing about customer tracking
