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Have a look at what else we do...
24 October 2003
Metro Group are "recognised" for field trials in the "Extra Future Store" in Rheinberg as
FoeBuD e.V.
in Bielefeld give them the data protection "anti-award",
"BigBrotherAward".
31 January 2004
During an official visit with a guided tour by store and marketing representatives of Metro, we discover that the chips are not destroyed at the store exit. The critical serial number, globally unique identification of the chip, can not be removed with Metro's technology. The "deactivator" at the store exit is a bluff! Metro doesn't see any problem.
1 February 2004
By accident, we find an RFID chip embedded in a "future store" customer card. This opens up ways of recording, unnoticed by customers, WHO has bought or even looked at a product. Spying on customers is entering a new dimension.
Nowhere in the store or in Payback card application forms had we been given notice of a chip in the customer card!
27 February 2004: Metro withdraws chips from loyalty cards
One day before our demonstration in Rheinberg, Metro Group announces in a fax to the FoeBuD e.V. in Bielefeld that they will be removing the RFID chips from their loyalty cards and exchange cards already given out to customers for conventional ones.
"This will cost them several thousand Euros", padeluun from the FoeBuD e.V. gives a first assessment and declares this fax a first major success of the STOP RFID campaign. "But the Metro Group is under more pressure. After all, our criticism has made it into the final DAX report of the day and the stock-market news on German tv channel ARD. The value of Metro shares has fallen considerably for some little time, even... But: Our demands have been fulfilled only partially. We will go demonstrating tomorrow, anyway!"
Already on Saturday, the day of the demo, the loyalty cards with RFID were not available any more at the Future Store. As yet, though, we only have their written declaration - nothing is heard about first measures towards a realisation of this intention. This means that as before customers are using their RFID-bugged cards in the stores belonging to the "Payback" consortium, and that means also in other shops, not only the Future Store at Rheinberg.
28 February 2004: Our demonstration in Rheinberg
Despite a snow chaos in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, about 50 people go demonstrating in Rheinberg near Duisburg. Following the call from the FoeBuD e.V. in Bielefeld, they demand that the Metro Group stop their RFID field trials until a board of data-, consumer-, and work protection protagonists has decided upon ways of assessing the democratic and societal acceptability of the new technology.
Starting at the station, the demonstrators walk Rheinberg's town center for some three miles through heaps of snow and golden sunshine, carrying signs and a wreath: "R.I.P. privacy". They hand out leaflets to the citizens of Rheinberg who ask the demonstrators for further information. Up till then, after all, they had been informed about the goings on at the store in their neighbourhood only by the shop owners. Now they learn, somewhat astounded, that all is not gold that glitters there.
The destination of the procession is the small patch of grass bordering the parking lot of
the Future Store. Here, it is first the photographers and camerapeople who do their work, then
padeluun and Claudia Fischer from the
FoeBuD e.V. read out their prepared speeches of criticism of the RFID tests going on
at the store, and the demands from their
call for the
demonstration. Here also they find an interested audience. Many of the store's customer stop loading their
weekend shopping into their cars in order to watch and listen to the protesters.
"The demonstration was a success", padeluun from the FoeBuD e.V. sums up the day. "The citizens of Rheinberg have learned about the risks they take with the RFID technology employed at the Future Store. And we now have to plan our next steps."
2 April 2004: Finally to understand what is radiating there: New FAQ online!"
We've made it! With the collected expertise of the FeoBuD e.V. and CASPIAN (Boston, USA) the newest answers to things RFID have now been put together on this web site - as we hope: understandable for all. How do I recognise RFID on the products I've bought? What about radiation? What is price discrimination? Answers to the most important questions concerning RFID are to be found in our RFID FAQ (=Frequently asked questions).
8 April 2004: Cards have been exchanged
A good six weeks after their announcement, Metro AG actually did exchange their
RFID-equipped loyalty cards for new ones without a spychip. According to Metro's statements
they had already issued about 10,000 cards to their customers. Now customers have received
their new conventional cards which function with the good old bar code. In the letter
accompanying the new card they state: "The RFID technoogy used in the Extra Future Store
at Rheinberg is absoltutely harmless for you, the customer, and also does not constitute
any breach of data protection legislation. [...] In order nevertheless to meet criticisms
that have been voiced against RFID in loyalty cards we have decided to exchange the Extra
Future Card."
In addition to this exchange, Metro gives its customers an extra bonus of 50 "Extra-Payback-
Points" (this equals 50 Euro-Cents - with 10,000 cards this alone equals 5,000 Euros).
FoeBuD's interpretation: After prominent data protection activists hinted at the
possibility that RFID in a loyalty card without sufficient information given to the
consumers might constitute a breach of existing data protection legislation, Metro has
forestalled a possible law suit. And that, to them, is worth the cost of the exchange
of the cards. Not least an outcome of our STOPRFID campaign!