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Howdy Pilgrim
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Monday, December 22, 2003
Thought Police
Gillette Caught Spying On Three Continents
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, December 22, 2003
RFID Tags Confirmed in Australian Mach3 Razor Packages
Angry Aussies may be next to protest spy chips
Gillette is at it again -- this time in the Land Down Under. Australia's largest retailer, Coles Myer, has confirmed that it is selling Gillette Mach3 razor packages laced with radio frequency identification (RFID) spy chips, according to a story in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald.
"Gillette couldn't get away with using this invasive technology in the United States or Great Britain," said Katherine Albrecht, Founder and Director of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN). "Now they're testing the waters in Australia to see if consumers there will tolerate it. We are confident, however, that the privacy-loving Australian people will set Gillette straight by joining other nations in a boycott of Gillette products."
Gillette's RFID tagging of individual razor packages ignores a call for a moratorium on item-level RFID tagging spelled out in the "Position Statement on the Use of RFID in Consumer Products" issued last month by over 40 of the world's leading privacy and civil liberties organizations. Among organizations endorsing the call for a moratorium are Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Australia-based anti-spam group Junkbusters.
CASPIAN launched its boycott of Gillette in August 2003 after the U.K. Guardian newspaper revealed that an RFID-rigged Gillette "smart shelf" at a Tesco store was secretly monitoring customers. Shelf sensors triggered a hidden camera to take close-up photographs of consumers when they picked up Mach3 razor packages. This system presumed that all Gillette customers were shoplifters until they could prove themselves innocent by having a second secret mug shot taken as they paid for the razors at checkout.
When photo snapping shelves in Britain and at a U.S. Wal-Mart store were revealed, angry consumers fired back with a flurry of protest letters and phone calls. Brits also protested outside of Tesco stores. Both Tesco and Wal-Mart quickly removed the "smart shelves," and Gillette promised to shift its RFID focus to back rooms and warehouses only. Gillette's current activity in Australia contradicts statements it made at the time that it had no plans to tag individual packages with RFID for at least ten years.
Full documentation of Gillette's RFID spy shelf debacle, called "the world's stupidest anti-shoplifting campaign" by one Australian media outlet, can be viewed on CASPIAN's Gillette web site: http://www.BoycottGillette.com. There consumers can see a video explaining how the shelf works, read related news stories, and identify the family of Gillette products that consumers are being encouraged to boycott.
CASPIAN encourages concerned consumers to contact Gillette and Coles Myer to voice their opposition to the item-level tagging of consumer items. Telephone, email and postal contact information is also available at the http://www.BoycottGillette.com website.
Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN) is a grass-roots consumer group fighting retail surveillance schemes since 1999. With members in all 50 U.S. states and over 20 nations across the globe, CASPIAN seeks to educate consumers about marketing strategies that invade their privacy and to encourage privacy-conscious shopping habits across the retail spectrum.
For more information, see http://www.spychips.com
Katherine Albrecht, CASPIAN Founder and Director: (877) 287-5854
Liz McIntyre, CASPIAN Communications: (877) 287-5854 or liz@nocards.org
Mary Starrett, CASPIAN Media Associate: (602) 315-6193
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posted by Vetzine
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