RFID Tagging: Final Report
Stephanie Allen, Gina
Calcaterra, Michael Gray,
Rahul Nair, Sumit Pahwa,
Edward Robertson
MGT 6772
Outline
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Technology Review
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Legal Issues on Privacy
Successes and Failures
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Active and Passive
Review of existing RFID implementations
Consumer Concerns
Business Case
Big Picture and the Future of RFID
Technology Review - I
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Active RFID
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Tags have internal power source
Larger computational capability and memory
Sensors can be added on board
Long range
Several thousand can be read by a single reader
More expensive (several dollars to >$200)
Life cycle limited by power source
Technology Review - II
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Passive RFID
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Tags powered by transmitted reader energy
Short range
Limited multi-read capability
Very small onboard cache (~128 kb)
Virtually infinite lifetime
High powered reader is needed
Very low cost (~20 cents)
Active Vs Passive RFID
Area Monitoring
Cargo security
Electronic
Manifests
Business
process impact
Active RFID
Yes
Passive RFID
No
Very
sophisticated
Simple
applications
Yes
No
Minimal
Minimal to
substantial
Uses of Active RFID
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External Powered
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MARTA buses
Rental cars
Self-powered (battery/solar)
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Shipping containers
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Future Federal mandates for cargo
Storage containers
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Naval aircraft engines
Uses of Passive RFID
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Inventory
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Retail
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Supply chain optimization
Near real-time stocking information
“No-wait” checkout
Alternative to credit cards
Personal
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Smart appliances
Georgia Tech “Aware Home”
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fce/ahri/
Privacy vs. Location: Case I
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Case I: While RFID is still under control of
retailer or wholesaler.
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Easy Case. All reasonable consumers know
that as they pass through the security gates
that they are being scanned for stolen
merchandise.
Case II: RFID in Waste or Recycling
Receptacle.
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More complicated.
“having deposited their garbage in an area
particularly suited for public inspection and,
in a manner of speaking, public consumption,
for the express purpose of having strangers
take it, respondents could have had no
reasonable expectation of privacy in the
inculpatory items that they discarded." (486
U.S. 35 1988).
Case III: Everything in Between
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Clearly murkiest case.
As of yet there is no clear precedent on this
issue and a lack of parallels in the precedent
that does exist.
Legal Academics: Four prong “Box Test”
“Box Test”
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The four prongs are:
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the Political Prong
the Moral Prong
the Teleological Prong
the Deontological Prong
Political Prong
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Impact on social institutions?
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How might the recognition of such a right
affect a judicial system?
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What would the consequences be for the
social and judicially endorsed principle of
personal privacy?
Moral Prong
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Is it "fair" to hold the use or possession of
RFID containing product to constitute a
waiver of privacy?
Is it fair to require that, as the price of
enjoying the benefits of a context-aware
sensing application in one's home, one must
forgo a right to privacy that one would
otherwise have?
Teleological Prong
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How will the goal of maintaining the status of
the home as the central case of privacy be
furthered by distinguishing the privacy
interests in the RFID tag data depending
upon the room from which it originated?
Deontological Prong
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For the purposes of the mutual access/joint
control rule, does the presence of the RFID
transceiver constitute shared access and
control over an individual's bedroom?
Legal Conclusions
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No legal liability for passive RFID devices.
Test is an Academic Solution to an Academic
problem.
Experts confident passive RFID is physically
incapable of breaching 10 foot parameter.
However, analysis may unfold and emerge in
context of active RFID.
Push-Pull
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Push
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Pull
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Retail – employee training costs, dubious value
Item-level tracking – software/hardware difficulties
Privacy an issue
Supply chain – value is worth the expense
Privacy not an issue (the customer asked for it)
Some correlation between Push & Failure, and
Pull & Success
Where RFID is not successful
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Item-Level Tracking in the Retail Industry
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This shows no promise anytime in the near future
Pallet and Case Level tracking.
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Cost is too high for most manufacturers
RFID tags are not at the 90% reliability rate
RFID manufacturers are working to correct known problems.
No Standardization
Problems for Prada
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After two years Prada is re-evaluating their Epicenter
concept.
Employees refuse to learn how to use the
technology and claim the store is just too crowded to
give the personal attention
The smart closets rarely recognized the RFID tags
and when they do the systems crash
The hand-held readers are placed behind the
counters to keep tourists from playing with them
Customers aren’t comfortable with the RFID tags
Solutions (Benetton?)
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Education
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Standards
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Cooperation among RFID manufacturers and support
technologies
Quality
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Tesco has dedicated a section of their website to explaining
RFID technology to their customers
Manufacturers need to work to improve known bugs such
as the inability to read RFID tags through liquid and metal
Higher Volumes
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Cost will decrease as volume increases
Where is RFID proving to be
successful?
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Development of RFID Smart tags that allow
consumers to do multiple actions and save
time
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Animal microchipping
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Containing the spread of disease
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Tracking SARS contacts
Why is RFID successful in these
cases?
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When the perceived benefit outweighs the cost of
losing privacy, consumers are willing to bow down.
Payoffs of saving time and versatile uses for the
consumer outweigh the privacy concerns (ex.
Octopus card)
Privacy of the consumer is not directly threatened
(animal microchipping)
Cases in which RFID has the potential to contain
disease (tagging SARS contacts)
Solutions to Consumer Concerns
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Kill tags at checkout
The “Faraday Cage” approach
Active Jamming
“Smart” RFID tags
But the most promising solution being explored
right now.....
Blocker Tags
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Universal vs. Selective
Low implementation cost
Prototype released in February by RSA Laboratories
and MIT
Advantageous over the “Kill Tag” approach, useful
aspects of RFID for consumers are retained
Current concern: Are these solutions biased towards
the technology elite?
RFID business case - I
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Build a solid team
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Educate team and management
Identify opportunities
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Not just an IT problem
Involve customers and suppliers
Identify all possible applications
Evaluate benefits
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Visibility, customer satisfaction, process
disruption, core-competency
RFID business case - II
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Identify and analyze candidate deployments
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Examine financial impact
Create the blueprint
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Run the business (RTB) costs
Grow the business (GTB) costs
Transform the business (TTB) costs
Consider partnering a consulting/technology firm
Find the bottom line
The Big Picture
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Examine RFID in its entirety
Do not play “follow the leader”
Standards will change/be set
Costs of tags and readers will change
Tag capabilities will change
Revisit/revaluate decisions periodically
Failure can affect relationships and/or brand
image
The Future of RFID
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Active RFID is a success today, and will
continue to be in the future
Passive RFID is coming in a big way
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Customer-driven in retail & personal use
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Educate consumers
Resolve privacy issues, both real and perceived
Focus on what adds value for the customer first
Cost-driven in business use
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Improvements to tracking hardware/software
Questions?
The Lunatic Fringe
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Population tracking
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Tracking cash transactions
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Involuntary tagging for “national security”
purposes (similar to livestock tagging)
Euros have RFID
U.S. dollars have “metal strip”
“Mark of the Beast”
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Biblical references in the book of Revelation