RFID in Finland: A survey of RFID deployments and privacy impact assessment (PIA)

This report provides a comprehensive outlook on RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) business in Finland, covering the profile of RFID sector, legislation related aspects, implementation of Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) framework, and user requirements concerning usability. Due to the ability of RFID technology to operate without direct visual contact at long distances (even 6-8 meters), there is a need to privacy and data protection related legislation and recommendations in the field of RFID deployments. Furthermore, RFID infrastructure is not always easily detected by the human eye, stored information may pose a threat for consumer privacy, and passive RFID tags cannot be switched off or be put on offline mode. The main objectives in this study were to depict the state of RFID sector in Finland, to survey the current stage of implementing PIA, and to study user requirements. A total of 33 respondents answered the questionnaire provided for this survey, of which 22 were members of RFID Lab Finland. 39 % of respondents were complete solution providers, 21% equipment suppliers, 12 % tag suppliers, 12 % software/ICT suppliers, 9 % consulting/ research, and 6% other. According to results, B2B business was most important (74.3 %) customer sector, and three most important customer segments were manufacturing, wholesale/retail, and transportation/storage. 21 % of respondents considered their PIA competence to be at least in high level. Further, PIA seemed to be relatively clearly instructed by the authorities and it is experienced to facilitate business. In general, it seemed that those companies that need to conduct PIA were more familiar with the framework.