Legal regulation and consumers: The RFID industry's perspective industry perspective

Abstract

Many journal articles have presented research on the adoption and diffusion of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) from a regulatory or consumer perspective. This research takes a reverse viewpoint. It researches the industry's experience with regulation by law and its experience with consumers. First, semi-structured interviews with RFID industry stakeholders are conducted on the topics of (UHF) frequency law, database law, and privacyprivacy law. Second, the industry's experience with (i) regulation by law and (ii) the consumers is collected in a worldwide online surveysurvey with companies and organisations that research, produce, sell, and consult on RFID technology. Third, empirical data is evaluated by different territories and industries to discuss four observations about legal regulation and consumers made by the authors with four feedback observations from the online survey. Given the evaluation of the empirical data, this article recommends that the RFID industry engage in better constructive dialogue with the legal regulatorlegal regulator, strengthen its knowledge on applicable legislation, and re-evaluate its information policy legal regulator information policy to the consumer. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.