1. Enforcing Privacy Policies for RFID Data Collection and Processing
Union University
Math / CS Departmental Colloquium
February 24, 2005
Haifei Li
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Union University, Jackson, Tennessee
Patrick C. K. Hung
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada
David Ahn
Nyack College, New York

2. Overview Introduction Related Work
Enterprise Privacy Authorization Language
RFID Authorization Model
Examples in Retail Industry
Summary and Future Work

3. Privacy Privacy is a state or condition of limited access to a person.
Information privacy relates to an individual’s right to determine how, when, and to what extent information about himself/herself will be released to another person or to an organization.
Most people feel that their information privacy is a serious issue on the Internet.

4. Radio Frequency Identification

5. Related Work Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P)
A P3P Preference Exchange Language (APPEL)
eXtensible rights Markup Language (XrML)
RFID is a tool for productivity gain, but it can also bring potential privacy violation.

6. Privacy Issues in RFID
Five potential threats to privacy and civil liberties:
Hidden placement of tags.
Unique identifiers for all objects worldwide.
Massive data aggregation.
Hidden readers.
Individual tracking and profiling.
Examples of "acceptable" uses of RFID have been given:
Tracking of pharmaceuticals.
Tracking of manufactured goods.
Detection of items containing toxic substances.

7. EPAL
Enterprise Privacy Authorization Language (EPAL) was developed by IBM Research Division.
An interoperability language for defining enterprise privacy policies.
Elements in EPAL:
Data Categories.
User Categories.
Purpose.
Actions.
Obligations.
Conditions.

8. RFID Authorization Model

9. Framework of RFID Access Control

10. Cashiers’ Handling of Private Information
<ALLOW
user-category = “cashier”
data-category = “RFID”
purpose= “payment”
operation = “read”
condition = “TRUE”>

11. Cashiers Cannot Write Data
<DENY
user-category = “cashier”
data-category = “RFID”
purpose= “tracking”
operation = “write”
condition = “/CustomerRecord/Data/DataType=PII”>

12. Read by Other Types of Readers
<DENY
user-category = “other”
data-category = “RFID”
purpose= “collect”
operation = “read”
condition = “/RFID/TagReaderType != /TagReader/TagReaderType”>

13. RFID Tag Can be Destroyed
<ALLOW
user-category = “store_manager”
data-category = “RFID”
purpose= “PreventViolation”
operation = “destroy”
condition = “/CustomerRecord/DestructionConsent = TRUE”>

14. RFID Tag Can be Blocked <ALLOW user-category = “store_manager”
data-category = “RFID”
purpose= “block”
operation = “Insert”
condition = “/CustomerRecord/BlockingRequest = TRUE”>

15. Collected Data is not for Resell
<ALLOW
user-category = “store_manager”
data-category = “RFID”
purpose= “block”
operation = “Insert”
condition = “/CustomerRecord/BlockingRequest = TRUE”>

16. Summary and Future Work
Issues in RFID privacy
Application of EPAL in RFID privacy with examples
RFID Authorization Model and RFID Access Control
Future Work:
Gather best practices of RFID privacy.
Investigate the usage of P3P outside the domain of personal data collection for web sites.
Conduct direct or indirect interviews with privacy advocates and company representatives.