INFORMATION SOCIETY : INTELLIGENT LABELLING: HUSTINX SEES NEED FOR REGULATION.

The opinion of the European data protection supervisor (EDPS) on the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology in consumer products and other applications which affect individuals is clear: additional legislative measures may be necessary in order to regulate their use in terms of privacy and data protection. Aware of the problem, Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding nonetheless said last March that she did not want to "over-regulate" a rapidly growing technology, which allows minuscule microchips - implantable on any object, animal, or even person - to transmit, through radio waves, information to sensors.

The European Commission has therefore left itself two years to plan the regulation, while preparing, for mid-2008, a recommendation - not legally binding - on information security and respect for privacy (see Europolitics 3269 and 3432).

"Self-regulation alone will perhaps not be sufficient to meet the challenge," warns Peter Hustinx, the EDPS appointed by a joint decision between the European Parliament and the Council in 2004 for five years. In his opinion given in late December, he asks the Commission to examine the problem from three angles: 1. putting in place clear guidelines, in close cooperation with interested parties, on the way of applying the current legal framework to the RFID environment; 2. adopting a legislation in the EU allowing the main questions linked to the use of RFID to be regulated in the hypothetical case of...