Let's stop skirting privacy issues.(Video Voyeurism Prevention Act of 2004 )

About a year ago, Congress passed a bill that made it a federal crime to videotape up a woman's skirt without her consent. The Video Voyeurism Prevention Act of 2004 focused on "circumstances in which the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy." It was a specific piece of legislation covering a specific technology and a specific abuse: "upskirting."

While the progress of the bill from its introduction in the Senate to presidential signing took 18 months-the mere tick of a hand on the congressional clock-who knows how much time and attention have been devoted to legislating all the other areas in which, by rights, we should have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Now we're faced with an emerging technology that allows the tracking of the skirt and, more important, its wearer. Radio frequency identification (RFID) involves attaching a tag to any object. The tag carries a microchip and a tiny radio antenna to transmit information-such as the exact location of the skirt at any given time-to an electronic reader. As you'll read in "The End of Privacy?" on page 33, RFID is already being used in library books; in credit cards to allow for instant, no-swipe payment; and at the retail level for printer/scanners and TVs.

The potential for privacy invasion is limitless. The tags are small enough to be embedded in a lipstick tube, a CD, a shoe sole, or even a person; so far, more than 100 Americans have been "chipped." Each tag carries a unique identifying code, so ...