New digital clothing tags cannot track or control you – it’s just a fabrication

^{By Renee Davidson}

A former US Fox News host and self-described libertarian, claims that new digital clothing tags designed to contain product information will instead track the people wearing the clothes and curtail their freedoms.

In a video shared on Facebook on February 17, 2023, Jedediah Bila says the World Economic Forum (WEF) is promoting a new digital ID tag for clothing under the guise of sustainability, but that it is in fact, a tracking mechanism to monitor and dictate people’s behaviour. 

“The idea that you would digitally track somebody’s clothes means that essentially they're digitally tracking you,” Ms Bila said in the video, which has recorded more than 6,000 likes and 182,000 views. 

Ms Bila plays a short clip from a video promoting digital IDs for clothing that was shared on the WEF’s YouTube channel. She overlays a caption on the video stating: “Here’s how they’re trying to control you”. 

She then draws a connection between the drive to reduce carbon emissions and the purchase of clothing to a conspiracy by “the system” – including the WEF, banks and government – to track people and control which items they can purchase, and when.

"All of these digital components connected enable them to say, 'you’re making this decision in which we see over here, this is connected to this … you can’t buy six things a week … so we’re going to just make it that you can buy three instead,’’ she said.

“So they’re not just tracking you, but they’re dictating your behaviour,” she said.

But the claim is false. 

The concept of digital ID tags for clothing was developed by New York tech startup EON and launched in 2021 with the aim of reducing waste from textile and fashion industries. The concept involves embedding the tags on clothing products with a unique digital ID, allowing them to be identified for resale, reuse and recycling.

EON has partnered with Microsoft and is working with five of the top 20 largest global brands and retailers to bring 400 million clothing products into the online program by 2025. 

According to EON, the digital ID tags serve two main purposes. Firstly, they improve traceability, allowing brands to stay connected to their clothing products post-sale and to keep the items in circulation for longer. Secondly, they provide consumers with access to product information and options to support reuse, resale and recycling of garments. 

The WEF has promoted the EON initiative on its website in the form of an explainer video titled: “How Digital ID Codes On Secondhand Clothes Help Cut Fashion Waste”. 

Nicole Rigas of EON’s marketing and communications, told RMIT FactLab in an email that no consumer data was stored on the digital ID tags. 

“It's only product data such as where it was made, what it’s made from, the brand, size etc,” Ms Rigas said.

She said the data carrier was typically a QR code or a near-field communication (NFC) tag, which transfers data between two devices in close proximity using wireless technology.

“These technologies do not ‘track’ location,” she said. “They simply allow the item to be scanned so users can access embedded product information.” 

In EON’s Industry-Aligned Action Plan (2022), the WEF is neither listed as an industry participant, contributor or philanthropic funder of the initiative, nor is it listed as a member of the CircularID Protocol Advisory Council, which oversees the global data protocol for the digital identification of clothing products. 

Rather, the WEF promoted EON’s digital ID initiative, which was part of Uplink – the WEF’s online digital platform that crowdsources innovations to address the world’s most pressing problems – as outlined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. On Uplink’s website, EON is listed as a “Top Innovator”.