Submitted by Laura Miller on
"A privacy group is blasting a unit of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for its PR plans for a controversial product-ID technology and other internal documents labeled confidential that were posted on its public website," PR Week's John Frank writes. Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN) has been raising the red flag over privacy concerns associated with the use of tiny radio-frequency transmitting ID tags in consumer products. MIT's Auto-ID Center is developing the devise, know as an RFID tag, which is said will be used to tell retailers where products are. CASPIAN uncovered documents on the Auto-ID Center's website prepared by PR firm Fleishman-Hillard, giving advice on how the center should handle privacy concerns and win public acceptance for the tags. According to PR Week, the PR plan recommends that external communications "convey inevitability of technology" and that the center develop a plan that "neutralizes opposition."
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