Have you ever been to a conference or meeting where you were herded around like cattle? Now you really can experience NAIS for yourself! Computerworld published a story, IBM Uses RFID to track conference attendees, that describes IBM’s public trial of this technology. One interesting quote:

Of the 6,500 people here, approximately 2% didn’t want a name tag with an RFID chip in it, said Mary Ann Alberry, IBM’s conference manager.

Granted, this conference is for technology professionals who are quick to adopt new technical trends. It still surprised me that only 2% declined the RFID tag. It shows that people are not aware of the issues surrounding RFID tags and the information tracking these tags make possible. Also, from the article:

The RFID system, coupled with what the conference knows about the person wearing the name badge, is providing lots of raw data, and Alberry said the company hasn’t figured out all the ways it may use it.

I did not see any use of data, from the article, that could not have been accomplished by using another method to measure. The primary function of the RFID tags is to collect ubiquitous data so that it can be analyzed. Is that really necessary?

Now let’s look at NAIS. One of the main selling points of NAIS, we are told, is that it will help to eliminate disease in our national livestock herd. This sounds good on the surface, but is it dealing with the root cause of disease? I would say that it is not. Dealing with the root cause is the only way to eliminate a problem. This is about data collection for future, unspecified, uses.

My final question. Will farmers opt out at a rate greater than 2%?