U.S. Government Deals With RFID Misconceptions

Filed in archive Privacy and Security on August 11, 2005

I am impressed with the better job the U.S. government departments are doing with their RFID communications outreach these days.

When the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently announced a pilot program to use RFID tags in documentation for certain visitors to the United States, they also were careful to include an RFID Fact Sheet. The Fact Sheet does a pretty decent job of explaining at a high level how the technology will work, and even anticipates and heads off some common misconceptions:

• No personal information will be included on the tag


• Information on the tag cannot be changed


• The tag will only be activated once officially issued


• Personal information will be processed only over secure communication paths

These factors will render ineffective so-called "skimming," the use of unauthorized reading devices to capture information from such tags. A serial number would be meaningless to any third party trying to collect that information.

Also, it will be impossible to "track" the whereabouts of someone holding such a Passive tag without a corresponding reading device, and prohibitively expensive and impractical to do so on any scale. Concerns about such tracking using passive RFID are perhaps confused with Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) devices, which rely on a completely different technology than that used by RFID and which will not be employed by US-VISIT.

This is a much better way of handling information about RFID, rather than waiting until you are in the midst of criticism and then dismissing concerns as "poppycock." (Although the latter way does make for great soundbites...for the privacy advocates.)

Public education is key to gaining faster and wider acceptance of RFID. Sorting out the true issues from the misperceptions and speculation is the first step.

Tags: RFID; Privacy; Government