RFID the good and the bad

My Fourth Position Paper

By Nancy

There are many times that we run into the applications of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in our daily activities without realizing what they are, for example, shopping in supermarket store such as Wal-mart and Walgreen, or paying electronic toll like i-Pass when driving to the toll way. Typically, a basic RFID system are composed of an antenna, a transceiver (with a decoder), and a transponder (RFID tag) electronically programmed. The antenna (packaged in the transceiver and decoder) emits radio waves in ranges from one inch to 100 feet or more, depending upon its power output and the radio frequency used. When the RFID tag passes through the electromagnetic zone, it detects the reader's activation signal. The reader decodes the data encoded in the tag's integrated circuit (silicon chip) which is then passed to the host computer for data processing, i.e., count the number of products sold in the store or reduce the amount of money paid from the transportation payment account.

RFID tags are categorized as either passive or active. Passive tags require no internal power supply whereas active tags do. Consequently, passive tags are much lighter and less expensive than active ones. However, they can be used within shorter distance and require a higher-powered reader. RFID tags come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes depending on their applications. RFID systems are also distinguished by their frequency ranges: low-frequency system (30-500 KHz) used in security access, assets tracking, and animal identification applications, and high-frequency system (850-950 MHz or 2.4-2.5 GHz) used in automated toll application. The higher performance of high-frequency RFID systems results in higher initial and operating cost.

Advantages over Barcode Technology:
Even though the barcode label (a visual-format surface that contains information which will be read by an optical scanner making computer entry process much faster) is very cost-effective, however, the significant advantage of all types of RFID systems is the non-contact, non-beam-of-light nature of the technology. Tags can be read through a variety of substances such as snow, fog, ice, painted/crusted surface, or other visually and environmentally challenging conditions, where barcodes or other optically read technologies would be useless.

RFID tags can also be read in challenging circumstances at remarkable speeds (electronic toll collection) and in most cases responding in less than 100 milliseconds. The read/write capability of an active RFID system is also the significant advantage in interactive applications such as work-in-process or maintenance tracking. Though it is a more expensive technology (compared with barcode), RFID has become indispensable for a wide range of automated data collection and identification applications that would not be possible for the barcode technology.

Business Applications:
There are many RFID applications that are beneficial to business industries. For example, they are used in supply chain management, product tracking, and inventory systems.

One of the most important features of RFID technology is that it can collect a wealth of real-time data. It is going to generate gigantic amount of data about the location of individual products in the supply chain, information about when and where merchandise is manufactured, picked, packed and shipped, and numbers of products that will have to be stored, transmitted in real-time, and shared with warehouse management, inventory management, financial and other enterprise systems.

RFID technology is also one of the most important key elements for being a real-time enterprise. Applications of RFID technology are also going to need to rely on a novel computing architecture, in which vast amounts of data processing will take place.

Standard Issues:
Until now, there is no global regulation that governs the frequencies used for RFID. Many documents that are set out to review today’s RFID standards or standards relevant to RFID express no warrantee that they will become out of date after they are published. A number of standard organizations regarding to RFID technology include FCC, ANSI, ASTM, and ISO.

In general, low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) RFID tags can be used without any license. Ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) cannot be used globally since there is no single global standard. For example, the US UHF standard is not accepted in France as it interferes with France’s military bands. Most of Asian countries have no regulation for the use of UHF. Application for UHF in some countries needs a license, which can be applied at the local authorities and later can be revoked if necessary.

Privacy Issues:
The expanding uses of RFID — embraced by large retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target, ePassport by US government with RFID Tag, or Verichip implanting, have raised some concerns on privacy issues. Because scanners can read RFID chips from a short distance for security, convenient, and commercial purposes, privacy advocates worry that the technology could eventually be used to track people’s movements that would later lead to wrongful uses.

Members of the groups including IT vendors, RFID users, and consumer advocates recommend all companies using RFID tags on products to always tell their customers that RFID tags are active in their stores and also make sure they know whether they can deactivate the tags or how that data will be used.
For ePassport, US government is now working on the process on how to prevent the privacy and identity theft on the ePassport’s RFID tag. Form what I heard, current RFID trackers cannot be accessed to obtain information if our passports stay tightly closed in our briefcase or pocket.

The implementations of Verichip, the human body implanting chip, which could be used to track and access the individual medical record, employment, and personal information or allow gain in different level of data access for an employee, are still in dispute. The developers argue that the level of authorized access to personal information will depend upon the receiver equipment. General tracker tool would be able to get only the tag ID. However, in my opinion, I would not feel comfortable anyway. Technology moves around so fast, perhaps shortly there after, some hackers may come up with the new method or tools to steal our information. And the idea of implanting a chip into human’s body may also make one terrified.

Security Issues:
There are two main concerns in terms of security issues on RFID technology. The first one is tag cloning that may cause data stealing or unauthorized reading. Several cryptographic protocols are developed to solve this problem. One major challenge is to shortage the computational resources within the tag. Standard cryptographic techniques require high performance circuits than ones available in most low cost RFID devices. Various policy measures have also been proposed, such as marking RFID tagged objects with an industry standard label.

The second concern is RFID database protection. There was a report in 2006 on viruses that could infect airport terminal RFID databases for baggage, and Passport databases that obtain confidential information on the passport holder. One core issue is whether RFID data should be centralized, decentralized or both. The product information should be associated with the tag on the network, or off. And if product information resides on the tag, how can a company protect consumer privacy? There are still on-going debates among these issues.

Summary:
Developments in RFID technology continue to yield higher capacities such as larger memory, wider reading ranges, and faster processing and its applications grow tremendously into different areas of interest including medical, business transportation, and automobile industries. It is believed that the technology will ultimately replace the barcode since RFID has so many benefits to offer such as real-time data processing and read/write capabilities even in harsh environment. If some standard issues are resolved, whereby RFID equipment from different manufacturers can be used interchangeably, the market will likely grow exponentially.

Privacy and security issues are also one of the most important concerns in RFID implementation. How well one’s individual information including medical, financial, personal records are maintained and properly used is still in a lot of arguments. For business applications, better management in terms of data analysis plans for such high amount of data in real-time manners and integration strategies to better suit the company’s organizational structure are needed for future RFID business demands.