Digital Business - SecurityThanks to supermarkets' work with Radio Frequency Identification tags, many people equate the technology with retail efficiencies. But for many, it is equally important in security.
One priority in the US is the tracking of medicines through the supply chain, as pharmaceutical companies move to stop the growth of counterfeit drugs.
"You want to be able to trace the authenticity of a drug if you're a receiver at a hospital," explains Greg Aimi, analyst at ARM Research. "At each point in the supply chain, you want to ensure it took an approved path."
In 2004, the US Food and Drug Administration recommended RFID as a tool to maintain supply chain information on drugs; toconfirm that they were manufactured and delivered by qualified companies under safe and secure conditions.
It dubbed it an "e-pedigree"system and hoped that by this year, all drugs likely to be counterfeited would be RFID-tagged on a per-bottle or per-box basis.
Several US states have made the e-pedigree system law and are waiting for pharmaceutical companies to respond.
Another important field is cargo security. Scott Smith, president of the International Cargo Security Council, says most people are now concerned not just about stolen cargo, but incoming threats. "There are concerns about what would be put on a conveyance -perhaps a weapon, contraband, or people trying to enter the country illegally."
When asked for the best means to detect a rogue nuclear weapon in a US city, Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, said a screwdriver, because you would need to open every cargo container and packing crate passing through US ports.
Trying to open the thousands of containers that enter the US each day is simply impossible, explains Mr Smith. Could RFID tags be the electronic equivalent of Oppen-heimer's screwdriver?
Rather than regulating the use of specific technologies to solve the problem, the US government is implementing the voluntary Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT). The initiative requires importers to take responsibility for the security of goods from their point of origin, through intermodal transport, through to their final destination. The reward for participation is faster processing through customs.
RFID tags could help achieve secure supply chain management for participants, but it suffers from some limitations, argue critics.
Paul Stam De Jonge, group director for RFID solutions at Logica CMG, says that the complexity of supply chain logistics makes itdifficult to co-ordinate RFID tracking activities.
Stefan Reidy, wireless expert at IBM Global Services, argues that data from RFID devices can be read by unauthorised readers, which poses a security risk, and adds that data can only be sent to base when a container is near a reader in a port.
Lani Fritts, COO of RFID tracking company Savi, disagrees. The vulnerable points in any supply chain are cargo transfer points, he says. No one is going to tamper with a cargo container in the middle of a stack of such containers, on a ship halfway across the Pacific. "Anyway, we check that the RFID tag is intact and on the vessel, and then you track thevessel via satellite across the ocean," he says. The system begins tracking the individual containers as they are unloaded at a port.
In many security applications, companies must be sure that the data cannot be extracted and manipulated from the product.
Jim Sheire, government programs manager at Philips Electronics, explains that this is why the company uses contactless smart cards - think of them as smart RFID chips - for its electronic passport projects, such as the US State Department's machine-readable passport system.
Philips' SmartMX chip, embedded into passports, has on-chip processing capabilities that can be used to encrypt and decrypt data. An optical reader scans a printed code on the passport, and the RFID reader in turn uses the code as a password to unlock the chip so that it can be read. This validates the identity of the passport holder and helps prevent fraud while stopping passports being read by unauthorised readers nearby, says Sheire.
The US government began trialling the electronic passports in December, and by October this year, all US passports issued will contain the radio-enabled chips.
Passports aside, the use of RFID is not coded into legislation designed to help keep US citizens safe - but some companies at least are hoping that it will help them to comply.
