RFID Gazette

Countries Miss e-Passport Deadline

This should prove interesting. ComputerWeekly reports that 3 of 27 countries participating in the US Visa Waiver Program missed the deadline to introduce the new RFID-enabled e-Passports, which security experts question the safety of. The countries, however, are very small (Andorra, Brunei, Liechtenstein).

According to Wikipedia, Andorra is known as a tax haven and has the highest life expectancy in the world (83.51 years). Brunei is officially the Sultanate of Brunei, once very powerful. Liechtenstein is doubly landlocked - it and Uzbekistan are the only two countries that are - and is a winter sports resort, so it lacks in heavy urban areas.

The deadline was Oct 26, 2006. Due to this missed deadline, citizens from these countries can only visit the US if the apply for and receive a visa.

More About Tracking People With RFID

In my post Can RFID track people?, I talked about "after the fact trail analysis", where companies can at least see where their employees have been - if not track them - using contactless employee pass cards. It isn't a real-time location system (RTLS). To do that with RFID, without using GPS technology. Or at least specialized hybrid RFID and Wi-Fi technology.

Now contactless cards generally have too short a read range, but I'm hypothesizing that you can track a society's inhabitants using RFID and Wi-Fi. Let's ignore the logistics of programming, the cost of technology, and the sheer computing power needed. Say we want to focus on a tracking a single person. Here's the hypothetical scenario. The fictional society in question has a tight-knit grid of RFID scanners, and everyone wears an RFID wristband/ watch with Wi-Fi communication as well. Each wristwatch is coded with a unique value that identifies the person wearing it. It could be government tax id, such as the SSN - Social Security Number - or what have you.

Think that there would be too many wristwatches to track simultaneously? Some of the new RFID tech being used to handle bins of drugs or other product can read thousands of tags per minute. But in this case, you are trying to track a single person, a single code. Anything else can be ignored. So, continuing with the scenario, you have a person passing a scanner every few feet. Somewhere in some control room, that information can be filtered for one person/ code.

What results is a near real-time "trail" of where that person has been. From this, relatively simply mathematics can be used to study the person's "trail vector(s)" and determine where they might be going. Then a force of "robo cops" outfitted with wireless technology, HUD (Heads-Up Display) goggles, wearable computers, Bluetooth earpieces, etc., could be notified and move to intercept the person.

Now of course, I took a lot of liberties assuming this and that above. And since the devil is in the details, it's those assumptions that have to be resolved for such a science fictional scenario. But I stand by my position that radio frequency technology CAN be used to track a single someone provided the technical and financial conditions are satisified. And it's the ability, not necesarily the actuality, that is frightening.

MasterCard Contactless Payment Tech Wins Award

MasterCard was awarded the honors of 2006 Frost & Sullivan Company of the Year for its PayPass contactless payment technology. The technology is being used in the new contactless credits cards from Mastercard. [via Contactless News]

MasterCard was one of the companies listed in a recent NY Times article about the findings of two US researchers regarding the security flaws in 20 contactless credit cards tested. The researchers found that not only could they "skim" important information off the cards while they were still in their envelopes, they could do so with a homemade reader, which cost US$150 to make. They also determined that a smaller reader could be made for only $50 and read information through a mailbox, from a distance of a few feet.

Several credit card companies have claimed that any information skimmed off the cards tested cannot be used successfully to make purchases. Although the whole issue begs the question of why the cards are not mailed with an anti-RF sleeve to at least give them impression that they are protecting consumers from all possibilities of fraud.

VeriChip Sticks It To Diabetics With Glucose-Sensing Chip

Digital Angel Corp, sister company of VeriChip - makers of the controversial implantable RFID chip - have come up with more implantable technology. This chip is glucose-sensing, and thus is designed for diabetics. Digital Angel also scored a patent for the chip, which is injectable by syringe.

After the chip is implanted, no typical painful finger pricks are needed to read body glucose level. The implanted chip transmits the information to a scanner. The chips are passive, so no battery is required.

According to the press release, there are 230 million people worldwide with diabetes - a huge market for Digital Angel and VeriChip Corp. It's becoming an epidemic in humans and apparently is also a major disease for livestock.

The armchair scientist in me thinks, "Wow, this is an incredible leap in diabetes management." But the VeriChip skeptic/ cynic in me thinks, "Wow, they figured out a way to 'legitimately' convince more people to implant themselves." My maternal grandfather, when he was alive, was a simple village physician who sometimes got paid in chickens and eggs. He was a humble, honest man. And he was borderline diabetic, as I am too. Yet he never once took any medication for it. He controlled his diet very strictly and managed to keep his diabetes fully in check. I struggle with mine, because I am not as disciplined as he was, but have little trust in allopathic ("Western") medicine, despite my grandfather being a doctor.

I also happen to know more diabetics these days than I've known previously in my entire life. The majority of them have to take daily needles; some take pills, and others, still, have lost limbs or even died in comas. It's a terrible, painful disease that has lots unfortunate side effects, including, sometimes, a weird sense of denial of the situation. Not all diabetics are disciplined enough to take their medication. In fact, up to 50% of patients for any illness do not take their medication as directed.

That said, I'd hate to knock anything that might help diabetics, but as per usual, I am reluctant to willingly accept RFID that is implanted in our bodies, no matter what the purpose. But that's just me. (I'm not a full-blown Luddite; just a hybrid.) There is, however, an NFC (Nearly Field Communications) RFID-based solution for diabetics by NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductors) that does not require a chip to be implanted. Though it does require inserting a small tube into the belly area, and finger-pricking for blood droplets is still part of the daily regimen. Both products are prototoypes and, as I understand it, still require US FDA approval. So it may be a few years to reach the market.

Can RFID Track People?

This is a debate that I cannot possibly settle, certainly not in a few paragraphs. But let me try. Some of my previous posts have "suggested" the possibility of tracking employees. They've drawn some heated comments as a result. I feel it's important to explain myself, not to save face but to explain exactly what I mean, and to prove, hypothetically, that is in fact possible to track people. However, I am talking of a very general form of tracking, which not only might not be in real-time, but would also be very rough.

To wit, consider this hypothetical scenario. Assume you have a closed environment, such as a large company that has RFID readers installed at doorway access points at regular intervals. Every employee is issued a contactless card that has an unique code. An employee leaves his cubicle to go somewhere, say lunch. The choices are the cafeteria at the far end of the giant complex, or out somewhere. In either case, the employee passes through two or three access points before his path diverges, depending on his destination. Each time through an access point, the time and the id of the card is logged. If the employee goes through more than one access point, which is likely, there is a log of his "trail". A very sparse log, but a log nonetheless. With that log, his boss can tell how long he took for lunch, whether he ate at the cafeteria, whether he stopped off at some lab along the way, etc., etc.

True, this isn't a real-time location system (RTLS), but it offers after-the-fact tracking of sorts, an employee trail, if you will. Guy J Kewney has a well-written post from March which says RFID is hard to get right, so don't worry about "imaginary Sci-Fi scenarios with Big Brother spies..." I respectfully say that while that may be true, it misses the point. RFID/ contactless technology does have the ability to give its controllers more information about you than maybe you want them to have. The question is, how will the information be used? Hopefully end users will be respectful with information they collect.

The Effect Of RFID Passports On Hollywood

As I write this, I'm watching the season premiere of the T&A jiggle show Las Vegas, which has a healthy dose of drama thrown in. It suddenly struck me that had this episode been written a few months from now, how different it might have been. One of the main characters, Ed Deline - played by James Caan - is a casino boss. He's also a former CIA operative , or something to that effect.

Shortly after being shot and having a heart attack scare only a few hours before his daughter's wedding, he's visited in the hospital by two members of the CIA. In his normal bullheadedness, he takes off to London. Fast forward to a scene of him in a bank, where he's greeted by a different name. He then opens a safe-deposit box that has a couple of stacks of British Pounds and what appears to be a couple of dozen passports. Tossing his passport into the box, he pulls out another one. Fast forward. He gets off a plane, hands over a passport. The uniformed customs agent opens it to reveal a picture of Deline, but greets him with a different name.

Now if you haven't already figured out what I'm getting at, here it is. If e-passports get implemented worldwide, or at least in the countries that are trading partners of the United States, as the current administration wants, then scriptwriters need a whole new education in e-passports. Most spy stories would cease to make sense to anyone who knows about an e-passport. Granted, having a passport does not mean that you would be visiting a country where they can actually read the RFID chip. As well, when you are a former military operative, you probably have ways to get fake passports with fake data on the RFID chip. At least in fiction.

The oddest thing about this episode, however, is that the show has an extremely high-tech bent, and yet they completely ignored the concept of an e-passport. Maybe scriptwriters are amongst those who are hoping the e-passport doesn't go through - despite the unlikelihood of that, even with all the supposed evidence that there are some serious privacy and security flaws.

Video Demonstration Of Contactless Credit Card Flaws

Payments News has an embedded YouTube video demonstrating the privacy holes in contactless credit cards. The video is by the same researchers that found that they could read credit card numbers and expiration dates off of the RFID tags on 20 contactless credit cards directly through their mailer envelopes. Their research was covered in the New York Times a few days ago. Note that it's rather difficult to tell what's going on in the video.

Earlier this year, other security researchers in Europe and elsewhere found that they could also skim information from an RFID tag in an e-passport and use them to trigger an explosive. The US and several countries in Europe started issuing ICAO-compliant e-passports in August. Both the credit cards and the passports have spawned a mini-industry in protective sleeves and wallets, which work on the principle of a Faraday Cage that blocks RF signals.

More Bookstores Using RFID

A number of bookstores in Europe are following the lead of libraries in an effort to tag their books to manage their supply chain and assets. While the core functionality is the same, bookstores have a slightly different purpose for tagging than libraries. The Dutch bookstore chain BGN recently started tagging their books and expect their return on investment to manifest in only 14 months.

Selexyz, the largest bookseller in the Netherlands, is doing the same thing, with the intent to control their restocking efforts and reduce labor costs. They've found that their special kiosks that allow customers to perform natural language searches for books has resulted in a 50% increase in sales. Accuracy in their processes has been 100%, except where manual processes are still being used.

Because of this success of this RFID project, they plan to follow suit in all of their stores by year-end 2007. Since big bookstores came into existence, they've not only cut earnings for the average author but also for themselves and publishers. If RFID can reduce costs for book chains, almost everyone in the loop wins (except any employees displaced as a result).

Radio-Tagging Badgers

Studying animal populations is usually the domain of statisticians and wildlife researchers, but a group of computer scientists have received funding for a three-year project to tag badgers, monitor them, and study their populations. All to test out a new technology called MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems). MEMS tech also incorporates RFID tags, which are then monitored by a sensor network. [via Science Daily]

Radio frequency technology has been used to tag and study "home ranges" of animal population since approximately the 1960s. (A home range, as drawn on a map, is essentially the boundaries of an area where a single animal or a group limits their movement to, over a period of time. Home range monitoring is also an early application of GIS - Geographical Information Systems.) This particular project uses advanced technology and a different methodology for data collection. In other animal applications, RFID has also helped cattle ranchers recover rustled cattle.

RFID Roundup - Wed Oct 25/06

RFID Cannes-Can
A hospital in Cannes, home of the famous French film festival, is using RFID in their laundry operations to manage hospital garments. Over 36,000 garments use TAGSYS tags that can repeatedly withstand water, heat and chemicals. Other hospitals in the area also send their garments to the same laundry. Information in each tag tells laundry staff where the garment came from and how many are in stock, amongst other things. [via PR Web/ Yahoo News] Hospitals are already using radio frequency tags and systems for patient records management and other applications.

Europeans Wary Of RFID
A survey by the European Commission suggests that over of EU (European Union) citizens are strongly in support of de-activating radio frequency tags on consumer goods at the point of purchase. Two-thirds of survey respondents feel there should be more data protection and privacy legislation, especially if RFID use grows in the EU. This is something the Commission will have to take in account, especially since other research shows big potential in Europe for RF technology, despite the narrow band for RFID tech allocated by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute).

Take The First Step
For those companies not yet using RFID, take some risks and jump in, learn to innovate. For those already using RFID, share your successes in a community fashion. That's the advice from representatives of RFID early-adopter companies like Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble, speaking at the EPCglobal US's third annual user conference. [via RFID Journal]

Contactless Credit Cards: Privacy Holes?

With the number of contactless credit cards distributed to consumers increasing, researchers are raising awareness of potential privacy issues in two documents, Vulnerabilities in first-generation RFID-enabled credit cards (NY Times, PDF, 15 pgs) and RFID payment card vulnerabilities technical report (NY Times, PDF, 6 pgs). These are part of an NY Times article (free registration required for just the article, not the PDFs). [via Payments News] I'm summarizing the NY Times article and adding a bit of commentary.

A test mentioned in the NY Times article indicated that researchers could read information from a contactless credit card from inside an envelope. The info culled contained the cardholder's name, expiration date, and even card number from the 20 different contactless cards they tested. This is despite the fact that several financial institutions suggest that their cards are encrypted. Now you're thinking that you have to have special equipment to read the cards. Apparently the researchers built one from an old computer and radio components. It cost them US$150 to make, and they figure they can reduce the cost to $50, and be smaller besides.

So if your mail carrier drops off your new credit card, and someone steals it from your mailbox, they can cull the information from the card. When they're done, they could then place the unopened envelope back in your mailbox. Credit card companies claim that there are additional safeguards, and "that threat really doesn't exist." Well, let's hope so. Since you can purchase products and services online without having to sign for them, fraud is easier online. However, none of the cards tested transmitted the additional "card validation number" which is sometimes needed for online purchases.

Then there's the issue of read distance. It's generally believed that contactless cards only have a read range of a few centimeters. Researchers are claiming that the range can be extended to up to a foot in some instances, so "skimmers" may even be able to read through a mailbox (provided it's not metal).

These are fairly surprising findings (more in the NY Times article), but not unlike the claims made for e-Passports. Several security experts from high-prestige universities are shocked by the findings, with one claiming credit card companies have crossed the line. The credit companies in turn are claiming that the information transmitted is basically useless, especially since there are other safeguards in place.

Obviously, either one party (the researchers) is exaggerating or the other party (financial institutions) is lying. If you do have or plan to get a contactless credit card, protect its information with one of the now multitudinous anti-RF sleeves or wallets available.

Please Mr Postman: Deutsche Post Uses RFID

The Deutsche Post is is following Australia Post's lead in using RFID to manage the delivery of postal mail. However, unlike Australia Post, who use tagged test letters in each mailbag, Deutsche Post is using yellow mail trays tagged witih a new type of tag, the D-RFID, where the D probably stands for the ultra-flat/ thin display. The display replaces the old paper barcode labels, aka "info carriers", that carry processing status information. These reusable D-RFID tags would replace the 500 milion or so info carriers that they use each year. The tags have to withstand harsh conditions and last 4-5 years.

The project is still in the test phase and will last until Sept 2008. It involves engineers from several organizations including Deutsche Post AG and Fraunhofer Institute.

[sources: PhysOrg via The RFID Weblog]

Hot RFID Career Opportunities

With a predicted shortage in skilled workers for the RFID industry, the number of study programs in colleges and universities are growing. There are also companies like OTA Training, who offer both in-person workshops and classes, as well as e-learning programs. Then there's RFID Recruiters, a company that finds and places business and technical professionals with RFID knowledge/ skills.

They list some of the hot areas for career opportunties on their getting started page: supply chain project management, sales management, RFID tag product management/ marketing, tag design management, middleware business development, channel managers, pharmaceutical smart label sales, print-and-apply technicians. In their actual opportunities listings page, there are over 50 (at the time of writing) executive, sales and technical positions listed.

RFID Recruiters also suggests there will be a growing need for scientists and technicians, since there will be a need to design and test all the new RFID tags with sensor abilities - temperature, humidity, shock and vibration, light. And since the tags of the future will be "very small computers that happen to have a built-in wireless networking capability", there's a need for people with computer networking architecture and management skills. (A geeky aside: Star Trek-like "sensor" mesh networks might even be built in the future, with such RFID tags as the core component. And it'll take some incredible neural network programming skills to have them function correctly.)

Essentially, the whole RFID industry is waiting to boom. All it needs are more skilled workers. To those interested, RFID Recruiters suggests studying the Wal-Mart and DoD mandates, their suppliers, and the equipment/ middleware/ software providers to those suppliers - since Wal-Mart and DoD are driving some of the largest RFID projects.

More Of What's Holding Back Adoption Of RFID

Aside from issues of privacy and security, one serious factor holding back a wider adoption of RFID is the lack of skilled professionals. While the general principles of radio frequency technology may be many decades old (varies depending on whom you ask), its current uses are mostly limited to the past 15 or so years. Those professionals who do have the skills are already employed. And those few that are learning are apparently not learning fast enough, with recruiters feeling that some grads are not skilled enough to handle more complex installations.

There are a lack of degree/ diploma programs, beyond a handful of workshops,  courses and programs (Middlesex College, Oakton Community College, Indiana University), at least in North America - some of which are government grant-supported. Self-learning is not always easy going. Even a person like myself, with extensive technical background, has difficulties understanding all of the aspects of RFID - and there is a lot to learn, with new facets being introduced into the industry on a weekly basis.

The industry could spur the learning by helping establish "trade" programs in community colleges, supply equipment, and even loan/hire out their own professionals to teach courses. Aside from promoting the opportunity of a career in RF technology, I don't see how the future-lack problem can be nipped in the bud. Look at India. They are currently short of qualified engineers and other professionals for all the outsourced work that is assigned to the country. They're now running fast-track study programs to graduate people faster, and actually inviting students from other countries. Something similar will probably have to happen for the RFID industry - maybe including short-term contracts for retired/ semi-retired programmers and database administrators, not to mention technicians.

If you have an interest in getting involved in the RFID industry, two sites you may want to visit are OTA Training and RFID Recruiters. OTA will be debuting their RFID on the Web e-learning program this Fall, for those want to learn independently. RFID Recruiters has an article explaining how to earn a career opportunity in RFID and how to get started (including a list of the hot areas of RFID opportunities).

RFID Roundup - Sunday Oct 22/06

Bell Canada Sponsors RFID Journal LIVE! Canada
Bell Canada has agreed to be the cornerstone sponsor for the first annual RFID Journal LIVE! Canada conference and exhibition. The event takes place November 8-9, 2006, in Toronto, Canada. The event features a number of highly-placed executives from various large Canadian retailers and other businesses.

US Dept of Defense Sets The Tone For RFID
With the US DoD just completing their RFID network last month, it's expected that more supply chains will follow suit. New software and hardware products [Extreme RFID] are coming out in anticipation of the need. The US Military also has spent the most [Circuit Asssembly] on active RFID projects this year: US$425M. This includes a number of niches and related technologies including ZigBee, UWB, and RTLS.

GBP 800M For Tech For British Biometric ID Cards
It's expected that the technology for the British biometric national ID card will cost GBP 800Mln, with a total cost of the program around GBP $5.4 Bln. [via VNU Net]

RFID Reduces Data Inaccuracies To Zero

In the late 80s I worked at a company that published stock market data through a special electronic channel. Consider that this was long before the Internet was public, but there were networks that could be utilized. The data was typed in each weekday morning by a small army of data entry clerks reading directly from a small collection of business sections of print newspapers. Obviously, data entry errors were numerous. It was part of the business. Now there's probably nothing RFID can do for such an operation, but it can reduce human data collection errors in supply chain processes.

In fact, data collection errors become nearly nil, provided RFID tag read rates are favorable. And in the supply chain, no errors means greater efficiency in the entire operation. Inventory information gets updated instantly in the supply database, with no need for manual data entry, and thus resulting in no errors (with the exception of possible, infrequent reader problems). Knowing what is in your inventory at the click of a computer mouse also means there is no need for holding surplus stock of items "just in case". You know how much you have and how much you need to restock. Thus, incoming orders can be handled more quickly.

These supply chain benefits apply both to in-house stock and items being shipped outside the company. Overall, production planning is improved, and sales forecasts end up being more reliable. Ferret has more details on an actual case study.

Tracking Consumer Response To RFID

Speculation, experience, and an informal survey of people who have used some form of RFID technology suggest to me that RF tech that focuses on consumer benefit without mentioning "RFID" will likely have a higher adoption rate than tech that does not. For example, a number of gas stations in North America have giant posters touting the "tap to pay" and "pay faster" benefits of contactless payment smart cards or key fobs. These posters do not mention RFID technology; the consumer benefits are played up. No muss, no fuss, no controversy, unless someone starts it first.

If you are interested in a more detailed treatment, Research and Markets has a report available  for purchase that is based on a study conducted to track consumer response to RFID.

Big Blue Postpones RFID Demo

IBM called off an RFID demonstration in Australia recently, at the Australian Tennis Open. They stopped due to the interference they were causing to a nearby Vodafone mobile phone tower, because of frequency overlap. The irony is that IBM was demonstrating the accuracy and reliability of RFID. [Australian IT via Storefront Backtalk]

As the Australian IT article indicates, this interference with a cellular tower is not a normal occurrence. Apparently the non-IBM RFID reader did not conform to standards set by GS1 (Australian branch of a standards body). However, differences in operating frequency ranges for RF equipment in different countries has occasionally been a hindrance to projects where RFID tags are used in different countries. Adoption of a single band for RF activity in all countries is difficult due to legacy use of various frequencies in each country. IBM has been looking to standardize RFID and is also involved in a new US-UK RFID research consortium, which they are leading.

Unusual RFID Use: Escargot Express

Seems that Boredom Research is so bored that they've decided to do some tests using their own version of snail mail. What they've done is send short messages by email, then downloaded each onto an RFID chip attached to an actual real live snail. When the snail passes by a reader, the message is is captured. Because of the speed (or lack of), there's no problems with read rate accuracy.

Mighty bloody hilarious. Next thing you know, someone will use RF-tagged tortoises for courier delivery. It should be noted that Boredom Research is a "performance art" group. Hmm. Maybe Australia Post's RFID project could gain something from this. Of course, the giant cybernetic honeybees (first chapter) in Kathleen Ann Goonan's science fiction novel Queen City Jazz might be more reliable messengers. Speaking of bees, here's more unusual uses of RFID.]

[Technovelgy via The RFID Weblog]

Enterprise Employee Smart Card Use

Who says large enterprise isn't warming up to RFID? German energy giant RWE recently completed the phase in of an ICMS (Identity and Card Management System) and contactless id badges for all 45,000 of their employees in 25 companies, over eight European countries. The solution was provided by vps Video Print Systeme. [More RFID via RFID Blog]

Interestingly, the European Union announced last year that they wanted a Europe-wide ban on RFID employee tracking. Cisco Systems was criticised last year for planning to track their employees with RFID tags embedded in their personnel uniforms. It should be noted that many large companies in North America have been using RFID-enabled contactless access passes for employess for over decade. These are not ID cards, but it is possible that each on contains a unique code, so a form of general tracking could be accomplished with these, every time an employee passes by an access area's reader.

Through Rain Nor Snow: RFID Goes Postal

You've heard - or even experienced - those stories about mail taking years to be delivered. Well it appears that Australia Post has as well and they're testing the RFID-tagging of mail to help monitor mail and improve postal services. To do this, over 12,000 test letters tagged with RFID are mailed out each month and asset-tracked via a number of RFID-enabled facilities including mail and delivery centres, and mobile units.

The Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989 specifies a rate of 94% for "on-time delivery" of mail. Australia post has achieved 95.6% on domestic mail. The RFID trials are being conducted to

...enhance our ability to monitor our service performance and provide a better analysis of potential problems within our delivery network

according to Australia Post's just-released annual report.

[via ZD Net Australia]

Yodlee Mobile Banking

Imagine being able to do all or most of your banking transactions on the go, using an Internet-connected mobile communication device such as a smart phone or PDA. Yodlee's Yodlee Mobile service lets banks and other financial institutions offer mobile banking to their customers. The service allows a customer to check balances, view transactions and check for fraud alerts. Additional services extended from Yodlee MoneyCenter allow for other fairly standard transactions, but on the go: bill payment and fund transfer. Peter Hazlehurst, senior vice president of product development said:

By allowing consumers to access and manage their accounts from anywhere, financial institutions can extend their brand and increase the value and frequency of customer communications.

Couple this with an RFID-enabled cell phone to make payments for transit, parking meters, movie theaters, etc., and you may never have to stand in line at a bank again.

[via Payments News]

TNT Logistics Temperature-Sensitive RFID Tags

Medical equipment and supplies often have to maintain a steady temperature. Any relatively significant changes could be fatal for a patient. TNT Logistics (not to be confused with TNT Express, a sister company) has come up with an RFID system to track the temperature of medical products. Said Steve Stine, TNT Asia life science medical industry director:

An increasing number of medical products must be handled and shipped without getting too hot or too cold. Ensuring the precise temperature management of these shipments is therefore crucial as it is a life and death matter for patients who are tested or treated with these high-value products.

Cold chain management and temperature monitoring is also used for pharmaceutical supplies, amongst other things.

[sources: CRM Buyer]

Advice On Debit Cards

The November 2006 issue of Consumer Reports suggests that consumers use only those debit cards that have a Visa or MasterCard logo (although the advice probably applies to credit cards and to RFID-enabled smart cards). What's more, you should pick cards carefully. The article has five tips (bold text theirs, other text mine.)

1. Know your liability for fraud. Don't wait to report a lost or stolen debit card. The longer you wait, the more likely you are to be responsible for fraudelent activity. (Visa and MasterCard have a zero-liability policy, but with certain conditions.)
2. Limit fraud exposure. Use a debit card that requires a PIN code for transactions. They are considerably more secure than those that just require a signature.
3. Avoid ATM fees. Why pay fees you don't have to? Try to minimize your card use on payment networks that cost you extra.
4. Beware merchant charges. Same as with #3: why pay extra?
5. Don't fret about the rewards. The rewards are not always what they appear to be. Make sure that you understand the conditions of all the rewards.

Of course, using an RFID-enabled smart card reduces a lot of the security problems listed above, and you can always carry a protecting sleeve to increase privacy protection.

[via Payments News]

RFID Applications: Shopping Carts

How many times have you seen a shopping cart left abandoned far away from it's rightful place? Personally, I find it annoying when people are too lazy or immature to return them. A prank's a prank, but leaving them around amounts to a sort of pollution. Not to mention, costs owners between $150-200 per cart, if they cannot be recovered. Well, a new tracking system from Intelligentz could stop the cart pranks of drunken college kids. It's kind of a combination RFID application: security and retail, with a bit of consumer use thrown in: asset tracking.

The problem is that there are people, say the elderly, who need the carts to take home their purchases. So the solution that Intelligentz has devised allows carts to be removed from a premises up to a certain distance - in this case a mile - by using long range antennas in light poles in the parking lot. This distance limitation allows management companies to more easily round up carts.

[via RFID Journal]

Hong Kong Airport Chooses Intermec

Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) will be using Gen2 RFID tags from Intermec to tag baggage. The airport has already had an RFID baggage sorting system since last year - the first airport in the world to do so. The new tags will be used to enhance the system for the fifth busiest airport in the world. [via Businesswire]

A number of other airports and some airlines are already run baggage tagging trials, both to prevent baggage mishandling and loss, as well as airline disasters. HKIA's system will print out flight and baggage information as barcodes. The same data will be encoded into an Gen2 RFID chip.

Biometric Passports

No word if it uses RFID, but the new Manx (Isle of Man) passports do use biometrics. Identifying facial data is stored on a chip. Faces are presumably scanned and compared to stored data wherever a passport would be checked. The cost of the new passports is 30% over previous costs. This is a deviation from the ICAO -compliant e-passports being used in most of the European Union, the USA, and other places.

An alternative method might be voice biometrics. This method is expected to be less expensive than iris or fingerprint scanning because of a reduction of necessary hardware. As the general populace of the world is fairly comfortable with recording their voice, it's also likely to achieve more widespread acceptance than other methods - which have been labelled invasive of privacy.

The only thing that probably remains is to convince people that each person's voice is unique. But voice biometrics coupled with a picture and combined with RFID to store other information, it may be a sufficient method for most situations, whether for banking for passports. (Except maybe identical twins?)

[original links from Contactless News]

With RFID Your Phone Is Your Key

A number of European hotels are running an NFC (Near Field Communications) trial that allows guests to carry room number and key in an RFID chip in their cell phones. This allows them to open their room door by waving their phone close to the reader. Guests who do not have an RFID-enabled phone are issued a contactless key card. In France, Hertz Rent-a-Car is issuing contactless cards as a replacement to car door keys. The engine is started by a push-button.

RFID chips from NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductors) are used in both trials. Similar American trials are expected in the near future. It should be noted, however, that contactless RFID smart cards have been used by employees of large corporations in North America for nearly 20 years. While their use may not be widespread, many large corporations already use them for all employees.

Whitepaper: RFID Ticketing For Transit

Innovision Research & Technology Group has a free white paper, Smart ticketing for mass transit - the new global oportunity created by low-cost contactless ticketing (PDF, 14 pgs). The paper is about the financial benefits of contactless technology to mass transit, for fare payment. [via Security Park]

Contactless ticketing and fare payment smartcards are taking off as niche applications of radio frequency technology. In addition to various bus and subway fare payment trials in Europe (Poland) and Asia, China's Guangshen Railway company recently ordered 125 million contactless tickets. Innovision Research also offers mass transit ticketing solutions. A recent offering is their tiny Jewel RFID chip, which can be used for disposable contactless ticketing.

Tagging Books With RFID

Libraries are already tagging books and other inventory with RFID, so it's not surprising that some large bookstores, such as the Dutch BGN [via Silicon] chain, are also chipping books. The book applications of RFID are essentially the same with in both environments, with the exception that one is selling the inventory. But when big book chains first started up and the trend caught on, they slashed the profit margins to themselves, publishers and authors. Obviously, this is an application where item-level tagging is essential.

Given the cost of item-level tags compared to case- and pallet-level, you'd think bookstores would be reluctant to reduce their margins even further. On the other hand, since using RFID means reducing the chances that a book doesn't get sold because it was mis-shelved, the ROI (return on investment) may be worth the 14-month wait they are expecting. While BGN is claiming that it's easier to track out of stock and popular books, it's really nothing that barcodes cannot do. However, one great advantage of item-level RFID is that inventory can be done without shutting up shop and having the entire staff document everything. And that kind of ROI is very measurable.

Boeing Using Item-Level Tagging

What has 4,000,000 parts, has temperature conditions ranging from -40 F (Fahrenheit) to +1200 F, is subject to regular vibrations, and costs US$100M? The Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplane, which uses 2,000 special high-memory passive tags that run about $15-20 apiece, compared to the typical item-level tags of about forty cents. Boeing is using these tags to help in the documentation and maintanence cycle of each plane in this new line. Despite the four million parts, only 2,000 particularly critical parts are being tagged since they are known to be of "low reliability". This includes expensive items like landing gear and hydraulic pumps. [via Storefront Backtalk]

If you didn't notice the math, that's about $30-40,000 in tags alone. Interestingly, they have found that having that many tags on an airplane does not seem to cause any interference with flight equipment. Obviously a good thing to know. Boeing has previously jointly tested RFID with FedEx on MD-10 Freighter planes.

BusinessWeek: CEO Guide to RFID

BW has a big "CEO Guide to RFID" issue this week, with some of the content available online. In addition to a podcast, there is a brief but very informative tip sheet of 5 dos and don'ts for RFID implementation. It also highlights some innovative uses of RFID, as well as wisely advises that enterprises need to involve a wide range of employees in the design process of an RFID implementation. And unlike PC magazine, they don't tell people to go chip themselves. Here is the article index. If you are planning an RFID implementation for your business, it might even be worth grabbing a print copy of BW this week.

Alien Technology Opens RFID Factory

Alien Technology, who called off their IPO a few months ago, has been moving ahead despite the perception of the market. They officially opened a 48,000 sq foot manufacturing center in the state of North Dakota. The plant has a yearly production capacity of 2 Bln UHF RFID tags. The goal is to eventually manufacture 10 Bln tags per year. Alien is working on manufacturing processes to bring the cost of tags down, as they make up a large portion of the total cost of an RFID project. [via Industry Week] This doesn't seem like a company that's all that worried about their future.

Offshoring Affecting Australian RFID Industry

While radio frequency technology has been around for a long time, its use for RFID and smart cards is relatively new, maybe 20 years at most, in limited trials, with the bulk of projects conducted only this decade. Still, offshoring has reared it's head enough that an Australian smartcard firm has found the need to close up one factory in Melbourne, Australia, and move part of its operations to Christchurch, New Zealand. The result is that 70 jobs will be lost in Australia and 30-40 created in New Zealand. Approximately 10 Australian employees will be re-employed.

Australia has a number of ongoing RFID projects including chipped driver's licenses, and has even been working on a code of practice since mid-2004. Local firms, however, are being outbid by not China and India but countries like Germany. The country's AMWU (Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union) suggests that this is partly attributable to "... the lack of vision by the Australian Government."

[sources: Australian IT]

RFID Middleware Market: Big Opportunites Ahead

The market for the business software needed to manage RFID implementations is expected to grow significantly this decade. According to a Venture Development study, last year's market was US$24M, and should reach about $192M in 2010. That's an increase of seven times, an approximate 50% compounded annual growth rate.

Who is expected to dominate in the market? Giants like Cisco, IBM, WebMethods, and possibly NCR. What's more, IBM and WebMethods are expected to be acquiring a number of RFID software start-up companies.

Fact is, if you're in the software business and are forward thinking, there are numerous industries that use RFID and can all benefit from custom middleware to manage the data collection and management. There's also the analysis and reporting afterwards, which is a different category. And the middleware functional parameters for each industry are already inherently defined by their needs. If you know where to look, the answers are available.

So opportunities will abound in the near future, if you get started now in your software design. Pick one of the hot industries for RFID implementation, study functionality requirements, and start designing code and testing your systems. While I'm not going to pretend to give you a coding lesson, the biggest hurdle in designing new RFID middleware, besides the lack of standards, will be understanding all of the "exception conditions" that will arise from collecting data in real time. If you get this sorted out, and have useful software, chances are that you may just get a courtship letter from IBM or others. But the competition will be fierce. See the SDA India article linked below for a breakdown.

[sources: The Register UK, SDA India]

Inspiration For California RFID Senate Bill 768

Despite California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's vetoing of California SB 768 RFID bill, it's expected that state Senator Joe Simitian (Dem) will try to reintroduce rfid legislation in another form. Previous to 768, he had introduced Senate Bill 682, which would have prohibited RFID being used in personal identity cards and documents in California. SB 682 was amended to be the less restrictive SB 768, which would have protected the privacy of citizens against misuse of RFID. The RFID industry was neutral in their response to the second bill, but vocal about the first. [via Card Technology]

It's noted that Simitian was inspired to draft the legislation due to a school in his district enforcing RFID badges on all students. Given that that's the case, he is probably going to continue reintroducing legislation until he succeeds, or at least comes to a compromise.

RFID Acquisitions: Thoughts From Savi Technology CEO

RFID Connection of AIM Global interviewed Vic Verma, co-founder and President/ CEO of Savi Technology. The company was acquired recently by the giant defense contractor Lockheed Martin. The RFID Connection article is a transcript of a podcast, which is also available. A partial summary, plus my commentary, is below.

Verma talks about a number of things, including why Savi agreed to be acquired instead of going IPO. (Alien Technology called off their IPO a couple of months ago, but Savi had agreed to be acquired by L-M just before that.) His answer is that RFID needs for someone to do for it what IBM did for the personal computer. For example:

Nobody wants to build an entire network in order to make the first phone call. On the other hand, once you have a global network, people will buy a cell phone to make multiple calls... there is a need for a global network [for RFID] so people can share the cost of the infrastructure and really just pay per use.

Verma also uses the Apple iPod as an example, to show that their business is not just about producing RFID technology, but packaging it up into a complete, integrated solution for customers (presumably enterprise). This is of course something that a smaller tech company may not be able to do, and which a large company such as Lockeed Martin can help with, and who has credibility.

Now, Motorola just agreed to buy Symbol Technology, and there are positive implications for the RFID industry. Which suggests that Alien Technology will likely have some courtship offers on the table soon, if not already. Lockheed Martin wants to expand out into commercial markets instead of just being in the defense contract market. And it's expected that Motorola wants to implement radio frequency technology in their cell phones, for use in contactless payment systems. It's likely, then, that several other smaller RFID tech companies will be courted by larger companies, possibly in defense, communications, retail or manufacturing.

SB 768 RFID Bill Not Dead Yet

Even though Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed California Senate Bill 768, that would have limited the use of RFID technology in terms of protecting citizen privacy, the bill is not dead yet. The bill, drafted by Senator Joe Simitian (Dem, Calif), can be brought back (probably in another form), but not during the rest of the current two-year Senate session. Simitian said that he was in the middle of his first four-year term - suggesting that he would continue to work on the bill. (Simitian also drafted California SB 682 which, had it passed, would have prevented RFID from being used in personal identity cards and documents in California.

Schwarnegger's response, when he vetoed the bill, was that it was premature, overbroad, and that it may hinder "beneficial new applications of contactless technology." It may be the cynic in me, but he seems to be favoring not so much state interests as federal interests by suggesting the bill may clash federal mandates about radio frequency technology due soon.

[sources: Baseline]

RFID Roundup - Thur Oct 05/06

RFID VC Funding: Reva Systems
Reva Systems, based in the state of Massachusetts, USA, just received US$13.5M in venture capital funding from Cisco Systems and SAP Ventures (a division of SAP AG) in a second round of funding. Total VC funds from rounds one and two is $20M. Reva's focus is RFID-related network infrastructure appliances. [via EE Times] Cisco has been investing in a number of RFID companies including AeroScout  and ThingMagic, as well as forming partnerships with T-Systems and others. SAP AG has previously teamed up with Sun Microsystems and Acsis.

Honda To Track Shipments With RFID
HUM (Honda UK Manufacturing) will be using RFID for logistics, to track 250,000 plastic containers and 100,000 metal cages. Intellident will be providing the tracking system. [via TUV]

Mexican University To Use RFID For Asset Management
Mexico's Universidad Regiomontana, an academic institution, will use AXCESS' ActiveTag RFID asset protection system to help prevent theft or loss of computer and other assets. [via PR Newswire]

DOD RFID Deployment: First Phase

ODIN Technologies is just completing the first of two phases of the RFID infrastructure for the DoD (Dept of Defense). This phase includes the deployment of 19 bases containing 69 facilities. ODIN Technologies was selected because of their 100% read rate for their RFID tags. DoD criteria indicate the ability to read either Gen 1 or Gen 2 tags. [via RFID Update] Earlier this year, ODIN Technologies was ranked as number two in the top ten RFID providers list, according to a survey conducted by RFID Update. Last year, they were granted an experimental license by the US FCC to test RFID devices using frequencies prohibited in North America but which are used in a number of European and Asian countries.

Spychips Author Makes Clarification On RFID Stance

Dr. Katherine Albrecht, co-author of Spychips and founder/ director of CASPIAN, weighed in last week with a comment on an article from this site from earlier this year: RFID vs Christian Right? Her comment, which just came to my attention, clarifies her actual viewpoint about RFID, and that she's never actually equated RFID in its present form with "the mark of the beast", despite what some writers suggest. She says in her comment

... that modern databases and communications  technologies, coupled with POS data-capture equipment and sophisticated  ID and authentication systms make it theoretically possible to require a biometrically associated number or mark to make purchases.

She also points out the signficance of such a payment system to Christians, "who have been mandated by their faith not to participate in such payment systems." This is much different than her being attributed to calling RFID "the mark of the beast." She also points out the inherent right that anyone of any faith should have regarding privacy. See the orginal VoIP Now article, which misquotes her, for Dr. Albrecht's full commentary.

Wi-Fi RFID Hybrid Location System

Hitachi is working on a version of their Air Location positioning system which will use Wi-Fi RFID tags. The system would be used to monitor the location of people in buildings and possibly be used for emergency use such as disaster relief. [via RFID in Japan]

This system is a form of RTLS, Real-Time Location Systems, which are a growing niche of RFID suitable for both inanimate objects and people using wearable RFID wristbands or badges. Several water parks are using them, including Great Wolf Lodge, or planning to. In fact, PDC, Precision Dynamics Corporation, is planning to demo their Smart Band RFID Wristband at a waterpark symposium in late October.

Pass The (RFID) Chips

I don't know if this is a joke by PC Magazine, but in the Sep 5/06 print edition, they have an article suggesting that people should embed an RFID chip into their hand, since "dogs do it, cats do it". [via Spychips]

For a different perspective on implanting RFID into humans, read my 10 types of people who should be RFID-tagged (and 5 not), which was actually a dark humor piece that some people just didn't get. There's also 10 people or groups who have been microchipped, which lists some people who have willingly or voluntarily had RFID chips implanted into them - in one case, twice.

RFID Roundup - Mon Oct 2/ 06

Unusual Uses of RFID: To Bee Or Not Bee
Bees are needed to pollinate a variety of commercially-grown flowers and trees, and with a decline American bee population, hive-stealing seems to be on the increase. To combat this, Bee Alert and Integral RFID have come up with something called Hive Sentry, an RFID-based system that alerts owners if hives are moved. Communication is via Bluetooth, to a PDA phone. [via RFID Journal]

Forget Smartcards, Here Are Smart Dummies
Judi Henderson-Townsend, who owns and operates Mannequin Madness, uses RFID to manage inventory of mannequins and parts, and to speed up the process for putting together a custom mannequin for clients. Her system allows her to quickly find limbs and heads that match with a given torso. [via RFID journal]

Dog-gone: Woman's Best Friend
Crazy but supposedly true, sourced from the BBC, a paragon of news truth: A dog swallowed the RFID chip from a car key, but the car started anyway, with the key in the ignition and the dog near the steering column. [BBC via Spychips blog]

I Am Not A Number - Battery-Powered, RFID-Implanted Human?

In the Sep/Oct 2006 print issue of RFID Journal, Kevin Ashton, co-founder of the Auto-ID Center and author of an upcoming RFID book, has a fascinating "final word" article called The Fear Factor. It reveals some suprising information that I was unaware of, regarding the implanting of RFID chips into humans. For example, Scott McNealy, former CEO of the giant Sun Microsystems (probably best known for their computers and their Java programming language, which powers 3.5 billion devices worldwide), once apparently said something to the effect that after a baby is born, their bottom should be slapped and an RFID chip implanted in their neck/ shoulders, and that that was not Big Brother, just Dad.

Wow. I don't even know how to respond to this. Gloat? See, I told you so?  Satisfaction? Well, this is just proof that there are people who want to do this despicable act, using radio frequency technology in ways it wasn't intended. (Other than Scott Silverman, CEO of VeriChip Corp's parent company.)

Granted, there are already people who have been microchipped, most willingly or even voluntarily. But Ashton's article says that RFID embedded in flesh will have a short read range, and will not even providing the tracking ability that McNealy and others are talking about. Unless active RFID tags are used, but they would require battery changes every few years. Imagine that, he says, having to be cut open to have batteries replaced.

Now what kind of a cyborg would you be if that was the case? But seriously, as I'm sure I've said even 15+ years ago, when I only knew a very little about RFID, imbedding chips into our bodies is not going to stop kidnapping. Which is what Ashton says as well. But most interesting of all is his premise that maybe human beings have a primal fear of surveillance. If that's true, then it just may be why there is such resistance to VeriChip and similar "implant us all" ideas. Let's just hope that resistance is not futile.