RFID Technology and MIT

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is ending a four-year collaboration with dozens of blue-chip companies that set out to advance a new frontier of information technology known as radio frequency identification that would track the location of everyday objects.

The Auto-ID Centre, the radio frequency identification (RFID) research group that RFID Technology and MIT and its industry partners formed in 1999, is disbanding its current form at the end of the month, MIT said. The centre was given the task of developing and field testing a new breed of computer network that can track everyday objects, such as razors and shoes, through an elaborate system of radio frequency-emitting microchips and readers.

Auto-ID Centre sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Gillette, Target, Home Depot and Wal-Mart, have poured about $20m into the project since its start, said Kevin Ashton, executive director of the Auto-ID Centre.

The university will continue to do RFID research through a new organization, called Auto-ID Labs, Ashton said. The former Procter & Gamble executive is leaving MIT at the end of the month as part of the transition.

The reason for the change is that RFID Technology and MIT has advanced to the point that the next steps of its development, namely the coordination of technical standards and specifications, go beyond MIT's mission as a research university, Ashton said. MIT handed off the administration of RFID standards and other duties in September to EPCglobal, a joint venture of the Uniform Code Council and EAN International, which oversee global bar code standards. Auto-ID Labs has licensed its RFID technology to EPCglobal (formerly AutoID), and the fees from that agreement will fund its research, Ashton said.

The winding down of the Auto-ID Centre marks the end of a controversial chapter for the vaunted institution of higher learning. The centre drew RFID Technology and MIT into a heated public relations battle this year when Wal-Mart, Gillette and other Auto-ID sponsors began attaching RFID chips to merchandise sold in stores, sparking intense criticism from consumer-privacy advocates.

Worried that RFID could lead to unprecedented levels of consumer surveillance, privacy activists organized protests and called for boycotts of the companies testing the technology.

RFID Technology and MIT hold the promise of substantial improvements in retail store logistics. Large department stores like Wal-Mart in USA and Marks & Spencer in the United Kingdom have made aggressive plans for use of RFID in their management of product inventories and sales.

The most comprehensive application of RFID Technology and MIT in libraries can be found in Singapore. Libraries in Singapore, under the leadership of the National Library Board, aggressively implemented RFID Technology and MIT in their libraries. A very large percentage of the public libraries in Singapore are already using RFID technology with remarkable results. Libraries in the United States and United Kingdom are also deploying RFID technology.

Examples of the use of RFID Technology and MIT in USA can be found in both public and academic libraries. New Hanover County Public Library in North Carolina and City Library at Santa Clara California were among the very early implementers of this technology. Others like Sarasota County in Florida are sufficiently pleased with their pilot projects that they are expanding the program to cover all libraries. The economic case is clear – the use of RFID technology is accompanied with improvements in productivity, better levels of service to patrons, effectiveness of self-check stations and reduction in losses due to theft.

“However, privacy advocates fear the technology’s short-term productivity gain will result in long-term privacy losses” The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF),  a digital rights advocacy group, feels that “the time is right for an assessment” of RFID technology. Greg Pottie, a member of EFF and an electrical engineering professor at UCLA, has called for limits on the use of RFID, and believes policy makers should evaluate the technology.

In order for the RFID Technology and MIT to work, only two attributes are required – Item ID (or bar code number) and security bit. (Some systems -like the 3M system- do not store the security bit [8]). Both these attributes are currently in use in libraries. The bar code and magnetic strip are direct equivalents to the data on the RFID. The only added privacy concern is that the item ID can be read without line-of-sight. However, in order to read the RFID tag, one would have to obtain the required RFID based reader and position it within inches of the tag. This would be very difficult to do undetected, and again the only data obtained would be the item ID; one would still need to gain access to the ILS to determine the title or other information of the tagged item. This severely limits the value of trying to invade a patron’s privacy using RFID technology. Since one needs to be so close to the book (or other material) to read it using RFID technology, it would be far easier to gain access to the material and view it’s title directly.

As a result of the recent Wal-Mart and Department of Defense (DoD) RFID (radio frequency identification) mandates, suddenly hundreds of manufacturers are seeking guidance on how to implement RFID systems. Enter the channel. VARs and integrators of all sizes are investing in RFID knowledge and offering everything from total solutions to customized RFID readers. If you are not familiar with the intricate nuances of RFID tags and standards, have no fear; there is still a place for you in this growing market. For instance, many manufacturers of bar code printers offer RFID-enabled models that print a type of RFID tag often referred to as a smart label. These are normal adhesive labels that have an embedded RFID inlay (transponder), which is composed of a metallic antenna loop and a silicon chip. The printers are equipped with an RFID reader/writer that encodes the transponder and then immediately checks if the tag is readable. Once encoded, the labels are printed with whatever bar codes, text, or graphics are needed.