The retail, security, transportation, manufacturing and shipping industries are all testing or starting to implement sophisticated RFID applications. But the RFID revolution is not without a downside: the technology's growth raises important social issues, and as RFID systems proliferate, we will be forced to address new problems related to privacy, law and ethics. Controversy has already erupted: in mid-2003 two major retailers--Wal-Mart in the U.S. and the international clothing maker Benetton--canceled large-scale tests of in-store RFID-centered inventory control systems apparently partly as a response to public reactions that raised the specter of wholesale monitoring of citizens through tags embedded in consumer products.
Source: Scientific American, http://http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rfid-key-automats-everything