EU Official Urges RFID Industry to "Create Trust" In the Technology
We had a very helpful discussion over lunch yesterday led by Gerald Santucci and Hana Pechackova, both of the European Commission. Santucci oversees RFID and other IT issues at the Commission and Pechackova is part of the Justice, Liberty, and Security branch of the EC. Dan Caprio, who organized the program, introduced our guests and explained his experiences working with Santucci while Dan was still at the US Department of Commerce.
Santucci said that the EU's decision to back off from regulating RFID is essentially a conditional one. The Commission is giving the technology the next few years to mature but simultaneously putting the RFID industry at work to demonstrate to EU citizens that RFID is safe, secure, and privacy-respecting.
He also urged consistency in messages from the EU and the US. If people hear different things from different places, it will be a lose-lose situation. Indeed, RFID faces "a problem of trust" and narrowing what people hear about the technology will help to build this trust, "We might lose in the end if we can't find the right way to create trust."
More details on the lunch can be found here.
