Boycott threat to High Street retailers

TOP High Street retailers face the threat of a customer boycott in a 'Big Brother' row over microchip trackers embedded in individual products.

Chains that could be caught up in the row include Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Asda.

The 'smart tags', no bigger than a grain of sand, can be fitted in anything from trainers to toothbrushes. They send out a radio signal that can be tracked by a network of internet-linked computers. Unless disabled, the tags remain active long after the product has been sold.

The technology is being tested by giant corporations such as Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble as a means of improving supply lines, tackling product recall problems and refining marketing.

Tesco uses the tags on DVDs and Gillette Mach 3 razors while Marks & Spencer will start fitting them to clothes in the autumn. But civil liberties groups fear governments could use information from the tags to snoop on people.

A US-based consumer group, that targeted Benetton and Gillette for adopting the technology is launching a British branch to boycott UK firms that use the tags.

A US boycott of Benetton last March - under the slogan 'I'd rather go naked' - led the fashion giant to suspend plans to embed tags in Sisley-branded pullovers.

Katherine Albrecht, organiser of the Boycott Benetton campaign, is founder of Caspian - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion And Numbering.

She said: 'This technology has the potential to track people from the time they get up in the morning to the time they go to bed.

'The reader devices are very easily hidden - they have been built into floor tiles, carpeting and doorways-So as you enter the doorway, you will be emanating an electronic cloud - everything from your earrings to what's in your briefcase would be sending out information. My concern is that this will be tied in with Britain's surveillance system.'

Unlike barcodes, the smart tags - known as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) labels - provide information beyond the store.

The Home Office sees the tags as a way of deterring shoplifters and identifying counterfeit goods and the European Central Bank plans to fit them inside euro banknotes.

But critics warn that, apart from the security implications, if tag readers fell into the hands of criminals, the crooks could pinpoint the homes of people who had bought expensive goods.

Richard Allan MP, Liberal Democrat technology spokesman, said: 'With RFID tags in circulation, all kinds of personal information will be collected about you that won't be properly protected. I don't think we want everyone to know where we are at any point of the day.'

Albrecht said Caspian planned new campaigns against Gillette and Tesco if they did not resolve its concerns about use of the tags.