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Walmart Will Track You and Your Undies With RFIDs

by Matthew Zuras on July 26, 2010 at 05:56 PM

walmart logo and underwear with rfid tag
Walmart, America's largest retailer and the world's largest corporation, will be placing radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on the jeans and underwear sold in its 3,750-plus U.S. stores beginning next month. The removable tags will be used to monitor inventory losses and shelf stock, but some people are less than happy about the prospect of carrying around a tracking device in their skivvies.

Walmart, like many other retailers, has been using RFID tags to track pallets of inventory as they come into each store. The company hopes that, by applying the tags to individual items, it will more tightly control its stock in stores. But customers will take the tags home with their purchases. And even though the RFIDs can be removed, they will remain active. Since RFIDs can be tracked from a distance, it's possible that, say, an unscrupulous marketer could drive past your home with a scan gun in tow, and mark you down as a person who might want to receive junk mail about Hanes pouch-fly Classic Briefs in XXL.

Walmart is aware of these concerns, and has made steps to ensure that suppliers embed the RFIDs in removable tags and not the clothes themselves. The mega-chain will also be posting signs about the new program to assuage fears of Big Brother. And those fears are both plausible and pointless. While Walmart is employing tracking devices, they are not exactly geo-locators. No personal information is stored in these high-tech bar codes.

But the Wall Street Journal spoke to Katherine Albrecht, the founder of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion, who said, "The inventory guys may be in the dark about this, but there are a lot of corporate marketers who are interested in tracking people as they walk sales floors." So, if you're a Walmart shopper, you shouldn't be overly surprised if you do see some more direct marketing. But you shouldn't worry about the retailer turning into the world of 'Minority Report.' Not just yet, at least. [From: Wall Street Journal]

Tags: DirectMarketing, marketing, privacy, retail, rfid, shopping, top, underwear, WallStreetJournal, walmart

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