Privacy

Privacy concerns are the main drawback to the technology. The very usefulness of the system is what makes it vulnerable to privacy abuses.

There are two types of tags on the market. One has a read-only capability; the information stored on the tag is only that which was entered at the time the item was processed into the library’s catalogue. These tags have limited privacy issues related to them as no patron information is added to the item's RFID tag.

The other is a read/write type of tag. These tags can be both read by the RFID readers and have information added to the tag by them, such as the patron’s name and other information. The potential for a privacy breach by such a tag is possible. However, all systems are structured differently; encoding has differences required by the individual institutions. A compliant reader could read the information off the tag but the information would be in an encoded form. The theft would have to be by someone who understood how that particular library encoded its material.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has come out opposed to any implementation of RFID systems in libraries during its presentation to the San Francisco Public Library Commission.  

The American Library Association policy, adopted in January 2005, calls for careful development of privacy policies prior to the planning of a RFID implementation.  

The Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner wrote a report on Guidelines for Using RFID Tags in Ontario Public Libraries. This report outlines some of the concerns and policy issues each library needs to develop prior to starting an RFID implementation. The report also includes a best practices outline.