RFID tags useful, but potentially risky.
September 15th, 2008Radio-frequency identification chips (often called RFID tags) are passive, inductively powered chips that are used for numerous applications, from replacing bar codes on supermarket products to discovering lost dogs and cats. It is a tiny, battery-powered electronic device that can be taken around to advice its possessor that a new RFID tag has been stationed in his or her vicinity 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 entry query and creates an appropriate response by applying the energy of the entering radio wave to power the chip long enough to reply.
Numerous other companies are using RFID for a great variety of applications. Some of these applications include: supply chain management, automatic payment, physical access control, fake prevention, airline baggage management, and smart homes and offices. The next are the most 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 unique features that make them more useful for different applications.)
RFID TAGS add value and accuracy to many applications such as: Compliance labeling in retail distribution centers. High-speed processes in postal and parcel distribution. Manufacturing process control and confirmation, material tracking, Airline baggage recognition and routing systems, and Single-pass multiple item identification. RFID technology can be used to raise productiveness and tracking in discrete and process manufacturing. For RFID applications such as toll collection and vehicle and container tracking, the tags are used over and over for many years. The most common applications are payment systems (Mobil Speedpass and toll collection systems, for instance ), access control and asset tracking. Active and semi-passive rfid tags are useful for tracking high-value merchandise that need to be scanned over long ranges, such as railroad cars on a track, but they cost more than passive tags, which means they can’t be utilized on low-cost goods.
However, the ease with which RFID tags can be tracked opens up the door to invading people’s privacy. The accelerated acceptation of RFID technology has increased concerns with many groups involved with privacy such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union . Civil liberties groups are worried about RFID technology being utilized to invade people’s privacy; RFID tags enable unethical individuals to spy on people and sneakily accumulate information on them without their approval or even knowledge.
RFID tag technology, a successor to bar code technology, identifies tagged items over radio communication between an electronic reader and tags containing data on micro chips. The major disadvantages of a passive rfid tag are: The tag can be read only at very short distances, typically a few feet at most. Passive RFID tags are more suited for warehousing environments where there is not a lot of interference, and relatively short distances (typically ranging anywhere from a few inches to a few yards).