Close shaves in the security sector

The news that Tesco in the UK and WalMart in the US are experimenting with RFID tags linked to CCTV surveillance won't just get some consumers hot under the collar - it will drive them to disobedience.

Caspian - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering - is up in arms about 'smart shelf' technology which is being used in a Tesco's in Cambridge in the UK, and in a Massachusetts WalMart.

Tags determine when a pack of Gillette Mach3 razors - a high-value item - leave a shelf, alerting a camera to record the aisle in question. Another camera can then be alerted when the earlier pack of razors is checked out, meaning that - in theory - there can be a shoplifting alert whenever the second incident doesn't follow the first.

In an unrelated story today, about use of smart card technology at Heathrow airport possibly being used as a modern day punch card one software vendor urged end users to 'get used to it' and urged bosses to educate staff about the benefits, rather than let them dwell on 'Big Brother' stereotypes. After all, it seems monitoring is likely to get more common, mainly in the name of security.

However, if retailers think consumers will put up with this kind of tag and track technology they are mistaken. The very least that will be necessary is a system that means a store manager or security guard knows when a pack of Mach3s (extra blade and all) is put down next to the canned goods aisle and not 'lifted'.

Otherwise the likely outcome is disobedience of the type that even Sam Walton and the family at WalMart can't deal with.