RFID Tags Useful, But Potentially Risky?

By: Miguel

Radio-frequency identification chips (often called RFID tags) are passive, inductively powered chips that are applied to many applications, from substituting bar codes on supermarket products to identifying lost dogs and cats. It is a tiny, battery-powered electronic device that can be taken around to advice its proprietor that a new RFID tag has been stationed in his or her locality or that his or her tags are currently being scanned. One of the introductory RFID TAG development companies, Alien Technology leads the field in developing high-quality compliant RFID tags, readers and printers for companies worldwide. Once the RFID tag is triggered, the tag decodes the inbound query and produces an right answer by using the energy of the incoming radio wave to power the chip long enough to respond.

Some other companies are using RFID for a big sort of applications. Some of these applications include: supply chain management, automatized payment, physical access control, counterfeit prevention, airline luggage management, and smart households and offices. The following are the more common forms of tags: Label: The tag is a flat, thin, flexible form. Ticket: A flat, thin, flexible tag on paper .Card: A flat, thin tag embedded in tough plastic for long life. Glass bead: A small tag in a cylindrical glass bead, used for applications such as animal tagging (e. Several frequencies have different features that make them more useful for diverse applications.)

RFID TAGS bring value and accuracy to many applications such as: Compliance labeling in retail distribution centers. High-speed operations in postal and parcel distribution. Manufacturing process control and verification, material tracking, Airline baggage recognition and routing systems, and Single-pass multiple item identification. RFID technology can be utilized to enhance productivity and tracking in discrete and process manufacturing. For RFID applications such as toll collecting and vehicle and container tracking, the tags are used over and over for many years. The most popular applications are payment systems (Mobil Speedpass and toll collection systems, for example ), access control and asset tracking. Active and semi-passive rfid tags are useful for tracking high-value items that need to be scanned over long ranges, such as railway cars on a track, but they cost more than passive tags, which means they can't be used on low-cost merchandise.

However, the ease with which RFID tags can be tracked opens up the door to invading people's privacy. The rapid acceptance of RFID technology has raised fears with many groups involved with privacy such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union . Civil liberties groups are afraid about RFID technology being utilized to invade people's privacy; RFID tags enable unethical individuals to spy on people and surreptitiously collect information on them without their approval or even knowledge.

RFID tag technology, a successor to bar code technology, identifies tagged items over wireless communication between an electronic reader and tags carrying data on microchips. The major disadvantages of a passive rfid tag are: The tag can be read only at very close distances, typically a few feet at most. Passive RFID tags are more acceptable for warehousing surroundings where there is not a lot of interference, and relatively short distances (typically ranging anywhere from a few inches to a few yards).

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