Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) attracts attention from citizens, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), businesses and policy makers throughout Europe, because of its potential for improving inter alia supply chain logistics, transport, asset tracking, theft prevention, counterfeit detection, and other possible functions such as paying with the mobile phone. At the same time, RFID is sometimes associated with tracking and tracing of persons, profiling of individuals, and radical changes in organisational processes.

As the development of RFID technology is still in full swing, it is difficult to say the final word about the opportunities and threats of RFID. Nevertheless, sides seem to have already formed before all stakeholders are truly informed. In order to further the debate, the European Commission sees its role as providing a balanced overview of the state-of-play and the possible actions needed. The European Commission organised an extensive public consultation process, which will result in a Communication to the Council and the European Parliament concerning RFID at the end of 2006.

As a first step in this consultation, the European Commission organised five workshops with experts and stakeholders from all over Europe. On 6 and 7 March 2006, the European Commission hosted a technology-oriented workshop that provided an overview of the technological state of RFID development. The workshop on RFID application domains and emerging trends, held on 15 and 16 May, focused on the economic and societal rationale for different RFID applications; it also set the stage for three subsequent ‘horizontal’ workshops: one on RFID security, data protection and privacy, health and safety issues (that was held on 16-17 May), one on RFID interoperability, standardisation, governance and Intellectual Property Rights (1 June), and one on frequency spectrum requirements of RFID (2 June).

The workshops on 15, 16 and 17 May featured 57 distinguished speakers and attracted a large attendance of 243 participants. Also, remote access to the conference with web-streaming of the presentation was available: on Monday 15 and Tuesday 16 May, nearly 500 server requests have been received. On Wednesday, 211 successful server requests have been received.

The more focused workshops on 1 and 2 June featured 35 distinguished speakers from a wide range of organisations and attracted, on average, 75 participants. Again, web-streaming services were provided and offered the opportunity for remote interaction with panellists: on Thursday 1 and Friday 2 June, nearly 750 server requests have been received.

This document represents the outcome of these sessions. It is available on ‘Your Voice in Europe’ website, and is open for comments until mid-September.

This consultation asks you, the stakeholders, to provide input to the question: What are the main opportunities and challenges for the implementation of RFID, and what role should the European Commission play in ensuring that the adoption of RFID technologies takes place in the best possible way to contribute to a more competitive and social Europe?

In order to contribute to answering this question we invite you to respond to the questions posed on the ‘Your voice’ website of the European Commission, which touch upon the main issues raised during the workshops. Your answers will be presented and discussed during a final conference in October 2006.
The European Commission has planned its Communication to the Council and the European Parliament for December 2006.