Chips,tags and scanners: Ethical challenges for radio frequency identification

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems identify and track objects, animals and, in principle, people. The ability to gather information obtained by tracking consumer goods, government documents, monetary transactions and human beings raises a number of interesting and important privacy issues. Moreover, RFID systems pose an ensemble of other ethical challenges related to appropriate uses and users of such systems. This paper reviews a number of RFID applications with the intention of identifying the technology’s benefits and possible misuses. We offer an overview and discussion of the most important ethical issues concerning RFID, and describes and examine some methods of protecting privacy. Norman G. Einspruch serves as a consultant to several high-technology companies, one of which is in the RFID components and systems business.     

Communication Policy

Fair Use and Free Inquiry: Copyright Law and the New Media edited by John Shelton Lawrence and Bernard Timberg (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, 1989~$59.50 institutions/$32.50 personal, ISBN 0-89391-484-3)

Media Freedom and Accountability edited by Everette Dennis, Donald Gillmor and Theodore Glasser (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989~$39.95, ISBN 0-313-26727-8)

An Economic and Legal Analysis of Undue Price Discrimination by J. Stephen Henderson and Robert E. Burns (August 1989, NRRI 89-12, 224 pp.)

Implementation of Open Network Architecture: Development, Tensions, and Strategies by Robert J. Graniere (September 1989, NRRI 89-13, 216 pp.)     

Predicting the decisions of hospital based child protection teams to report to child protective services,police and community welfare services

This study examines judgments made by hospital-based child protection teams (CPTs) when determining if there is reasonable suspicion that a child has been maltreated, and whether to report the case to a community welfare agency, to child protective services (CPS) and/or to the police. A prospective multi-center study of all 968 consecutive cases referred to CPTs during 2010–2011 in six medical centers in Israel. Centers were purposefully selected to represent the heterogeneity of medical centers in Israel in terms of size, geographical location and population characteristics. A structured questionnaire was designed to capture relevant information and judgments on each child referred to the team. Bivariate associations and multivariate multinomial logistic regressions were conducted to predict whether the decisions would be (a) to close the case, (b) to refer the case to community welfare services, or (c) to report it to CPS and/or the police. Bivariate and multivariate analyses identified a large number of case characteristics associated with higher probability of reporting to CPS/police or of referral to community welfare services. Case characteristics associated with the decisions include socio-demographic (e.g., ethnicity and financial status), parental functioning (e.g., mental health), previous contacts with authorities and hospital, current referral characteristics (e.g., parental referral vs. child referral), physical findings, and suspicious behaviors of child and parent. Most of the findings suggest that decisions of CPTs are based on indices that have strong support in the professional literature. Existing heterogeneity between cases, practitioners and medical centers had an impact on the overall predictability of the decision to report. Attending to collaboration between hospitals and community agencies is suggested to support learning and quality improvement.