Mikoh Corporation, an Australian company with offices in the U.S., is making a big push to introduce its tag security solution more widely in the United States.

Today the company announced its first licensing agreement in the United States of its RFID tag tamper-indicating technology, Smart&Secure, to Serigraph Inc.The agreement allows Serigraph to manufacture, market, and sell RFID labels, seals and tags that incorporate the technology.

Last week Dr. Peter Atherton, the Chief Technology Officer for Mikoh, was gracious enough to talk with me about his company's technology. He is a very articulate individual and explained the technology in clear terms:

• One problem with standard RFID tags is that they are not physically secure. For instance, most tags can be removed and placed on a different item. "It is important to pay attention not only to the security of tag data, but also the physical security of the tag itself. You're taking a leap of faith that when reading a tag, that the reader is detecting the item on which the tag was originally placed," Atherton said.


• Mikoh's solution involves a conductive ink used for the antenna on the adhesive side of tag. A tamper release layer is printed that ensures that if someone tries to remove the tag the antenna will break up and not be functional. As Dr. Atherton pointed out, this also has the side benefit of putting consumers in control. In the future, should consumer goods have tags on them, you could disable a tag that uses Mikoh's technology simply by peeling the tag off.


• Mikoh's solution is "agnostic as to frequencies, protocols, and equipment." It can be applied to any number of different manufacturers' tags. The Mikoh technology will add about 10% to the cost of manufacturing the tags (but not to the cost of readers, etc.). The process for the tamper-detection technology is patented in U.S. and internationally.


• The Mikoh security technology has to be built into the tags from ground up. Mikoh works with systems integrators, not the end users. Integrators usually supply the chip and the antenna design, and MIKOH contracts out to have the tags made according to the integrators specifications with the security built in.


• Mikoh is now broadening its approach by licensing the technology to tag manufacturers and others, and entering into partnership arrangements.

I asked Dr. Atherton where the technology is best suited. He said government uses have been big -- anywhere there are security-conscious applications of RFID.

In commercial uses there are four areas showing a lot of interest:

(1) Ground transportation systems - electronic vehicle registration is getting a strong push, to track the registration and insurance status of vehicles. Consumer cars and commercial vehicles, both, would be considered.

(2) Supply chain security - the first focus is pharmaceutical security; counterfeit drugs are a big concern.

(3) Asset management - businesses are concerned about tag security when using RFID to track expensive and mission critical assets

(4) Document security and tracking - legal documents, visas and travel documents offer another potential use, to ensure that the documents have not been tampered with.

Tags: RFID; business