The Commission has expressed concern about the privacy
implications of personally-identifying technologies such as radio
frequency identification (RFID) chips. It said that it is important
to discuss whether or not people should be able to disappear from
networks.
"The Commission will launch a debate on the technical and legal
aspects of the ‘right to silence of the chips’, which has been
referred to under different names by different authors and
expresses the idea that individuals should be able to disconnect
from their networked environment at any time," said a Commission
consultation paper.
The consultation will form part of an action plan published by
the Commission outlining how it will legislate and regulate the
coming phenomenon it calls the 'internet of things'. This is the
name it gives to the increasing automatic communication between
devices and tags that are forming complex networks around
citizens.
"Every day we see new examples of applications that connect
objects to the internet and each other: from cars connected to
traffic lights that fight congestion, to home appliances connected
to smart power grids and energy metering that allows people to be
aware of their electricity consumption or connected pedestrian
footpaths that guide the visually impaired," said Viviane Reding,
EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media.
"The promise of this new development of the internet is as
limitless as the number of objects in our daily life it involves.
However, we need to make sure that Europeans, as citizens, as
entrepreneurs and as consumers, lead the technology, rather than
the technology leading us," she said.
The Commission believes that existing trends towards the
interconnection of objects as well as people using networks will
continue.
"These can be simple everyday items like yogurt pots that record
the temperature along their supply chain, or two prescription drugs
that warn patients of a possible incompatibility," said its
statement outlining its plans. "Or they can be more sophisticated,
such as health monitoring or recycling systems…with everyone
surrounded daily by several thousand objects, this interconnection
of physical objects will amplify the profound effects that modern
communications are having on our society."
The Commission has outlined the areas in which it will take
action to try to ensure that any new object networks do not trample
on the rights of the individuals who interact with them.
Its first objective is to create a set of principles which it
wants to underlie the 'internet of things'. It wants to make sure
that privacy and data protection are considered from the outset in
the building of any systems, and wants to ensure change is
measured. It will produce statistics on the use of RFID chips
starting in December of this year, it said.
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