RFID Tags - Smart Idea or Invasion of Privacy?

Imagine living in a world where you could be track by the pair of shoes that you just purchased at Wal-Mart or by a sweater that you just purchased at the Gap. Without your knowledge, the product you purchased just might be carrying a chip the size of a flake of pepper. These chips are known as RFID (Radio Frequency Identity Chips) and they could be heading to a supermarket near you.

RFID, is a controversial technology that uses tiny microchips to track items from a distance. These chips have been given the name "spy chips" as each of these chips contain a unique identification number. It allows for things such as a Social Insurance number to be read silently and undetected by radio waves. These chips can be placed just about anywhere. From clothing tags to missiles and to pet tags to the food that we eat, anywhere that a unique identification system is needed or required. Essentially, these tags can carry simple information such as a pet owners name and address or the cleaning instructions on a sweater.

RFID, tags on the whole, are a very useful and from a technology point of view, a very intriguing idea. These tags allow retailers to reduce inventory as well as reducing the number of thefts. They are also very useful in automobile assembly plants. They are used to move cars through an assembly line and at each stage of production the RFID tag tells the computer what the next stage of production should be.

In theory these chips are a great idea, but as consumers we have a right to know whether or not the item that we have just purchased has a RFID tag. Retailers need to provide the consumer with information that the product that they just purchased contains one of these RFID tags. Once the product leaves the store product is no longer a part of the inventory and therefore the RFID tag should somehow be disabled. One could only imagine the danger these tags presented if they were to stay active once they left the store. The individual who just purchased that product could potentially be tracked to their home and it is at this point that a persons privacy becomes the main issue. Sure these tags are a great idea but where do we draw the line between efficiency and someone's privacy.

The RFID tags at this point are not ready for mass consumer production and at present are not on many of the products that we purchase. There are companies however that would like to start using these chips in the near future. If companies are going to use these tags to keep track of their products, they should be placed in plain site of the consumer so that they know exactly what they are looking at. Companies should also consider putting these tags on the packaging of the product rather than the product itself. Be sure to check out the "Hot Tips" section for just a few of the companies that are listed as sponsors the RFID technology.

There is no doubt that the face of technology is constantly changing. We have a world of information at our fingertips that we didn't have 10 to 20 years ago. These RFID tags are all well and good, however, when our privacy is put into question, we really need to sit back and take a second look. Besides, does the whole world really need to know what is going on in our lives.

Is your child's safety worth 5 minutes of your time? We have created the OSA Agreement to open the lines of communications and limit internet access, to inquiring little minds. For your Free Agreement, join thousands of other concerned parents and download it at:
http://www.onlinesecurityauthority.com/ and click on the OSA Agreement, link at the top of the page. Your child's safety is a click away.

Bill Wardell Is the Senior Editor/Creator/Developer of Online Security Authority, the Author of "Don't Take Candy From Strangers" and a Authority Site Center Certified Coach. Speaker and Radio Show Host, Publisher, Researcher and National Radio Guest! Hear what is happening in the world of RFID, and listen to our radio interview with Dr. Katherine Albrecht Founder and Director, CASPIAN Consumer Privacy:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=16331

RFID In Health Care Organizations

The term RFID (radio frequency identification) describes a wireless identification technology that uses radio waves to communicate data. Data is encoded in a chip, which is integrated with an antenna and packaged into a finished "tag." RFID tags may be passive (requiring close proximity to a reader, and usually applied to track supplies), or active, in which the RFID tag contains a small battery to allow continuous monitoring (used mostly to track equipment).

For healthcare organizations, RFID is the next inevitable step towards the new generation healthcare services operations and it is set to provide new efficiencies, improved services, enhanced healthcare workflow and increased patient care for organizations seeking competitive advantage. Tracking elderly and disoriented patients in long term care cases, tracking mothers and their babies in maternity wards, ensuring the right procedure is being performed on the right person at the right time in surgical wards, a "smart" patient wristband that when scanned by RFID reveals patient name, date of birth, admitting orders, insurance information, surgical site, allergic reactions, medication requirements, and blood type are some of the innovative uses of RFID in the patient sphere. Among those benefiting are the many small to mid-size providers and clinics looking for an edge ? from improved operational efficiency to enhanced patient safety.

Some of the recent RFID solutions, gaining importance in the Healthcare space are :

Patient safety at point-of-care: With numerous cases of wrong-patient and wrong-procedure surgeries ocurring, the use of an RFID tag attached to a patient, allows a physician to verify the correct patient, procedure and site ? prior to the start of any invasive procedure.A handheld device can be used to confirm information(like the patient's Chart and ID wrist band)stored on the tag. RFID tags containing full patient histories are used to provide emergency workers with a potentially life-saving "head start" in making treatment decisions.

Patient tracking: Hospitals are incresingly looking towards being able to track patients in realtime. RFID tags are attached to ID bracelets of all patients , or just patients requiring special attention, so their location can be tracked continuously. Physicians can also use the RFID system to easily locate patients, increasing their productivity on rounds.

Asset tracking: Hospitals are finding it easier to manage highly mobile medical equipment such as IV pumps and wheel chairs. RFID tags are used to transmit location data to a workstation which displays the data on a floor plan of the Hospital.Trained Nurses use the software to locate the items during their daily routines. This ensure that the Hospital reduces its inventory and labor costs.

Meds management: An RFID-enabled meds management solution allows a clinician to scan a patient?s wristband to validate identification and review current orders from a physician. Likewise, tagged medications can be scanned to verify that patient, medication, dose and timing are consistent and accurate.

Clinical supplies management: The use of RFID in health care provides a simple, low-cost solution that allows tracking of supplies from the factory to storage shelves.This ensures that hospitals and clinics achieve improvements in availability of supplies, less duplication and loss of equipment, and savings in inventory costs.

To conclude,

Hospitals can regain control and significantly reduce costs by using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology to track clinical staff, patients, supplies, medication and equipment. RFID technology and location systems improve staff efficiency, reduce theft and loss of equipment, and can provide a secure system for controlling medications and blood products. A study released by Chicago-based Fast Track Technologies Ltd. predicts the health care market for radio frequency identification technology will soar to $8.8 billion by 2010.

The Author Prakash T.C. is a Support Manager at Binary Spectrum

 

RFID Labels

An RFID label or tag is basically an RFID (radio frequency identification) transponder that is embedded with an IC (integrated circuit) and an antenna. The IC is encrypted with a unique electronic product code (EPC) that is equivalent to an electronic lineage, setting apart the tagged item from any other in the world. When a tag goes comes within the range of an RFID reader, proprietary information is passed on through an antenna to the reader, which then feeds the data to a central computer for processing.

There are two types of RFID labels, namely inductively coupled RFID tags, and capacitively coupled RFID tags. Inductively coupled RFID tags have been used for years to track cows, railroad cars, airline luggage, and freeway tolls. There are three parts of a usual inductively coupled RFID tag, namely silicon microprocessor, metal coil, and encapsulating material. Silicon microprocessor chips differ in size, depending on their purpose. Metal coil is made of copper or aluminum wire, wound into a circular pattern on a transponder, and it acts as a tag's antenna. The tag sends out signals to a reader, with read distance decided by the size of the coil antenna, and these coil antennas can operate at 13.56 MHz. Encapsulating material is glass or some polymer material that wraps around the chip and coil.

Inductive RFID tags are powered by the magnetic field produced by a reader. The tag's antenna picks up magnetic energy, and the tag interacts with the reader. The tag then adjusts the magnetic field for retrieving and transmitting data back to the reader, and the reader directs that data to the host computer.

Capacitively coupled RFID tags have been manufactured in order to reduce the cost of radio-tag systems. These tags get rid of metal coil and utilize a little quantity of silicon to accomplish the same function as that of an inductively coupled tag.

A capacitively coupled tag also has three components, namely silicon microprocessor, conductive carbon ink, and paper. As far as silicon microprocessor is concerned, Motorola's BiStatix RFID tags utilize a silicon chip that is only 3 millimeter square in area. A capacitively coupled tag can store 96 bits of information that would allow for billions of distinct numbers, and these numbers can be assigned to goods. Conductive carbon ink is a special ink that acts as the tag's antenna. This ink is applied to the paper substrate by using usual printing techniques. A silicon chip is affixed to printed carbon-ink electrodes on the back of a paper label, to create an inexpensive, disposable tag that can be integrated on conventional product labels.

RFID provides detailed information on RFID, RFID Tracking, RFID Tags, RFID Technology and more. RFID is affiliated with DNA Testing Services.

History of RFID

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology can be traced back to World War II. Counties such as Germany, Japan, America, and England all used radar (that had been discovered in 1935 by a physicist named Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt) to warn of planes coming nearer while they were still far away. However, they had problems differentiating between their own planes and enemy planes.

The Germans observed that if pilots rolled their planes while returning to base, it would change the radio signal reflected back. This basic method notified a radar team on the ground that these were German planes and not others. This is, in essence, the first passive RFID system. Under Watson-Watt, the British built up the first active "identify friend or foe" (IFF) system. They planted a transmitter on each British plane and when it received signals from radar stations on land, it began broadcasting a signal back indicating that the aircraft was friendly. RFID technology uses this same basic idea. A signal is sent to a transponder, which gets activated and then either echoes back a signal (passive system) or broadcasts a signal (active system).

The first U.S. patent for an active RFID tag with rewritable memory was obtained by Mario W. Cardullo on January 23, 1973. In 1973, Charles Walton, a Californian industrialist, received a patent for a passive transponder that was used to unlock a door without a key. Then Walton licensed the technology to a lock making company called Schlage and to other companies.

The U.S. government had also started working on RFID systems. In the 1970s, the Department of Energy invited Los Alamos National Laboratory to build up a system to track nuclear materials. Then scientists developed the idea of placing a transponder in a truck and readers at gates of secure facilities. A gate antenna activates the transponder in the truck, which would react with an ID and other data, such as the driver's ID. Los Alamos also developed a passive RFID tag to track cows on request for the Department of Agriculture.

In the early 1990s, IBM engineers developed and gained exclusive rights to an ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID system. UHF provided a longer read range (up to 20 feet in good conditions) and quicker data transfer. IBM ran into a financial crisis in the mid-1990s and sold its patents to Intermec, a barcode systems manufacturer. Intermec RFID systems have been mounted in several different appliances related with warehouse tracking, farming, and many others.

RFID provides detailed information on RFID, RFID Tracking, RFID Tags, RFID Technology and more. RFID is affiliated with DNA Testing Services.

RFID Systems

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a network of microchip transponders, readers, and system software that makes possible the regular exchange of data.

Each RFID transponder, or a tag, is implanted with an integrated circuit (IC) and an antenna. The IC is encrypted with a unique electronic product code (EPC) that is equivalent to an electronic lineage, setting it apart the tagged item from any others in the world. When a tag comes into the range of an RFID reader, proprietary information is passed on through an antenna to a reader that consecutively supplies data to a central computer for processing.

RFID technology was firstly developed for armed forces during World War II, and it has spread out into trade, medical, education, automotive, defense, snack food, and travel industries. It has been expressed as "wireless bar coding," but actually, even basic RFID beats bar coding capabilities by far. RFID scanning can be done from larger distances than those in bar code scanning. RFID eliminates the need for line-of-sight reading that bar coding depends on, and RFID systems can provide a range of up to 90 feet. The Intermec Technologies Corporation, a designer and producer of RFID systems, has signed a contract with the government recently. European RFID systems are still more constrained than those in the U.S.

RFID systems are self-powered and they do not have any human involvement. They can scan several items at a time and furnish fingerprint-specific information about each. RFID systems are generally differentiated by storage and retrieval capabilities (read-only or read-write and passive or active power sources) and by frequency- LF (low frequency), HF (high-frequency), or UHF (ultra-high frequency).

Read-only tags are limited to recovery of stored data, such as product lot number or an item description. Read-only systems can efficiently streamline basic production and supply chain operations. Read-write labels are designed with both read and write capabilities. In a passive system, an RFID reader produces an energy field that triggers activation and gives power to a tag.

A passive system is not so powerful and somewhat less dependable than an active system. An active system has batteries implanted in tags to power transmission of data between tag and reader. Active systems are more refined than passive systems and offer longer read ranges. They have other features such as temperature sensing and a longer operating life.

RFID provides detailed information on RFID, RFID Tracking, RFID Tags, RFID Technology and more. RFID is affiliated with DNA Testing Services.

RFID Readers

RFID is an acronym that stands for "radio frequency identification." It is a continuously evolving technology that fundamentally is an automatic identification system that facilitates detection of objects. Purchases will be made easier when bar codes are replaced by RFID tags, also called smart labels. RFID tags are intelligent bar codes that can interact with a networked system for tracking every product that has been put in a shopping cart. They come in two types, namely, inductively coupled RFID tags and capacitively coupled RFID tags.

The basic function of an RFID reader is to communicate with an RFID tag by emanating radio waves through its antenna. RFID readers are categorized on the basis of their range, like UHF (ultra high frequency) and HF (high frequency), which are 13.56 MHz and 2.45 GHz. Their prices are also dependent on their ranges, therefore, UHF readers are the costliest, but prices range from $2500 to $3000.

There are three reasons for these readers being so expensive. First, there is no IC (integrated circuit) integration; second, there is a low quantity in production; and third, customized components are not available. However, according to a new calculation by a research company, the cost of UHF readers may go down by the end of 2006 or in 2007 since more and more dealers will invest into this technology. Also, as requirement levels increase, component costs will decrease.

A new analog front-end IC was launched by Colorado-based company, EM Microelectronic, which works for 13.56 MHz RFID readers. RFID Demonstration Reader, called EMDB408, was introduced by this company. It can be utilized as a reference design and development tool kit.

Also, a new antenna from Poynting Antennas was brought for the 860-960 MHz band. This particular range includes both the European Union and the U.S. RFID bands. RFID technology has bright prospects, and it can be beneficial to the mankind.

RFID provides detailed information on RFID, RFID Tracking, RFID Tags, RFID Technology and more. RFID is affiliated with DNA Testing Services.

RFID and the Future; The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The issues of RFID and the Future are serious and need to be fully considered. On one hand RFID offers a glimmer of hope for the future of logistics, tracking, security and cost reduction for business, governments and citizens of the world. The potential for this technology is literally out of this World and thus we should also mention the satellite and NASA applications as well.

Someone needs to write a book, which discusses The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The over regulation already coming into play in states like California limiting its use to protect individual privacy in the future, which is said to be a little over paranoid. Such a book also talks about the use for tracking shipments and the security that will come of this outstanding revolutionary technology.

On the Ugly side the citizen right groups like Electronic Privacy Frontier are keeping a close eye on sub-dermal implants and government tracking. Someone with a lot of knowledge on this subject needs to write an eBook on RFID to advice the public and the industry as well? That someone should be an author who has previously written lots of articles on; logistic flows, robotic factories, future fighting forces, case studies, potential uses, biometrics, technology, antennas, Homeland security, cargo containers, price points.

This author needs to be someone who has taken RFID Magazine, nearly since its first issue and has no less than 60 articles on the subject as well. RFID or Radio Frequency Identification is an industry in need of a spokesman and a few good books on the subject. I certainly hope this article is of interest and that is has propelled thought. The goal is simple; to help you in your quest to be the best in 2007. I thank you for reading my many articles on diverse subjects, which interest you.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington