Big Brother, er, Wal-Mart Is Trying to Get Into Your Pants

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is planning to insert electronic ID tags, or "smart tags," into jeans and underwear starting next month. The tags are supposedly meant to track inventory and aid in stocking, but they raise major concerns for anyone who values their privacy. The tags can be removed but never turned off, they are trackable, and "privacy advocates hypothesize that unscrupulous marketers or criminals will be able to drive by consumers' homes and scan their garbage to discover what they have recently bought."

According to The Wall Street Journal:

"There are two things you really don't want to tag, clothing and identity documents, and ironically that's where we are seeing adoption," said Katherine Albrecht, founder of a group called Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering and author of a book called "Spychips" that argues against RFID technology. "The inventory guys may be in the dark about this, but there are a lot of corporate marketers who are interested in tracking people as they walk sales floors."

Whether one takes the obvious approach – don't buy clothes from Wal-Mart! – or not (or can't, if Wal-Mart's the only affordable game in town), the signs are clear: This type of electronic privacy invasion will become more and more prevalent as technology allows. Everything will be trackable eventually. But don't worry, it's for your own good. I mean, what kind of world would this be if mega-corporations like Wal-Mart start losing random pairs of Miley Cyrus-brand jeans? Economic anarchy, I tell you!

[Cross-posted.]