Should Wal-Mart use Smart Chips?

The article I read was, Wal-Mart Radio Tags to Track Clothing by Miguel Bustillo of the Wall Street Journal. Starting within the next few weeks, Wal-Mart will be adding a new piece of technology to their retail stores specifically directed towards anti- theft of women’s garments and underwear. However, there are critics to this new innovative way to ensure theft isn’t an issue. The issue is privacy, in order for the “smart tags” to register, the employee must use a hand scanner prior to trying it on. Mr. Raul Vazquez who operates many Wal-Marts in the west admitted that having a tool that could automatically calculate how many of which products are available to your consumers. By privacy, I learned later on in the article that technology critics (smart tags) believe it’s possible for criminals to use the same devices to scan products to see what was bought, giving them information about you.

“Some privacy advocates contend that retailers could theoretically scan people with such licenses as they make purchases, combine the info with their credit card data, and then know the person's identity the next time they stepped into the store.” Wal-Mart is demanding that suppliers add the tags to removable labels or packaging instead of embedding them in clothes, to minimize fears that they could be used to track people's movements. It also is posting signs informing customers about the tags. In a similar case, American Apparel Inc. in 2007 found that stores with the technology saw sales rise 14.3% compared to stores without the technology, according to Avery Dennison Corp., a maker of RFID equipment.

I believe that these technology systems are going to do nothing but help innovate ways that business can operate. I also believe that it’s a must that a corporation such as Wal-Mart should search for new ways to help clear the confusing systems that sometimes mess up in the end. I think that soon enough we will see these chips in every good sold. The government won’t be able to legally track them but I also think that theft is a concern of everyone’s. It’s possible that these chips could help seize products from criminals faster and more effectively as well.