DOD's Plan to Share Data with NATO Countries

Filed in archive Implementation on February 24, 2006

The United States Department of Defense is moving forward on plans to use active radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to support collaborative military coalition operations with 24 countries, as noted in an InformationWeek article:

The group, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland and North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO) country members will use consistent standards to share information based on international organization for Standards (ISO) data formats. * * *

The tag data routing code stored at the beginning of the active RFID tag, which requires a power source to transmit the data signal, will identify the country of origin. Coalition members have agreed to transmit securely via the Web the tag number and when and where it was read.

This news, of course, is not related to the furor going on right now in the United States about Dubai buying the company that manages some port operations for several U.S. ports. But it does highlight the extent to which we live in an interrelated world, where globalization blurs borders. And how no country is an island, no matter how wide the oceans separating it.