My position isn't equally true of every privacy concern -- I'm making a specific comparison between the information provided by howling IDs and mobile phones. One can get exactly the same information -- a unique identifier and its position -- from your mobile phone as from RFID, but we already have a perfectly good mobile-tracking infrastructure built out and in use. It just doesn't make sense, I argue, to worry about the government tracking your e-passport while you leave your mobile phone on, because they're exactly the same type of threat. In contrast, cameras (for now) capture different information (someone who looks like X was at Y) than do credit cards (someone paid for Z with X's credit card) than do mobile phones (someone with SIM card U was at S series of places). I make the mobile-RFID comparison specifically because I suspect that even in our class, very few of us have regular second thoughts about leaving our phones on.

I agree that raising the profile of RFID privacy concerns generates attention, but I worry that many peoples worries about RFID privacy are subtracting respectability from a movement that's already vulnerable to accusations of paranoia rather than adding significant resources.

-- DanielHarris - 07 Apr 2009