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Europe Adding RFID Tags to Euro Currency
An EETimes article a few days ago reports that the European Central Bank is planning to add RFID tags to euro bank notes. This would allow each bill to be tracked whenever it is used, and if the chip includes writable memory, to even record its own history.
I wonder how they would survive spin, wash, dry, and iron cycles. or drying in a microwave oven.
Their has got to be a wide range of applications that would ruin the chips. I can see civil rights volunteers subotaging currency in the safety of their homes, a sort of grassroots thing.
the thousand lira notes in italy used to have a thin silver wire embedded in them. It was really easy to pull those out.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I saw this on the news a couple of nights ago. Hitachi makes the RFID. According to Hitachi the chips only contain 128 bits of ROM which is most likely only enough for a unique ID to trace the product or passport, etc. Perhaps another flaw in their design is the use of the 2.45GHz band which is already in use for 802.11b and microwave ovens. What's going to happen if they scan my passport while my portable microwave generator is outputting 100mW? That's surely enough to interfere with all RFID chips in the local area. I am also curious as to how these devices will power themselves considering they are .4mm^2.
Try looing at Where's George? for stuff about the velocity of money. Their members record the serial numbers on all the bills they get and the system tracks them across the world. Not as detailed as a chip in a bill though.
Maybe I should just start stealing everything I need so I won't be tracable through my money.
I noticed some people asking basic questions like if RFID is wireless. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is inherently wireless, it works on the same principal our AC power transformers use. There is a coil inside the bill that is a certain number of turns. It is energized by a high energy coil placed where the bill needs to be tracked. The high energy coil induces a current in the bill's coil and causes it to modulate a unique stream of bits on a preset frequency. It's pretty nifty technology, it never needs batteries and will work indefinitely.
This technology has existed in access control systems for years. It's important to note that they're not 'chips' in the common sense of the word... they're actually coils of copper etching.
The coil is 'read' by emmitting a radio signal and reading the reflected frequency from the coil. This makes the currency immune to all forms of defacing short of cutting the coil out of the currency or cutting it in half. If the bank was smart, the coil spans the entire currency so it's impossible to complete remove it. It can be read from up to twenty feet away. However, it's difficult to discern different signatures or how many signatures there are when the coils are in close proximity to each other.
And no, microwaves will only serve to ignite your currency. But hey, if you've got money to burn, go for it, honey.
The answer is that the version talked about in the article won't do jack squat to stop money laundering, but... The G2 chips will likely contain other "law-enforcement friendly" features... Like a "no-recent-transaction" ping.
This would be very effective since drug money often comes in large piles, and would spend large amounts of time outside the legitimate banking system. As such, the transaction records of these bills would have big holes in them. Add in a feature that says: If a transaction isn't recorded against this bill for 10 days (or whatever number) it emits a radio "ping".
Passing police cars would then be able to scan for how much "suspicious" cash you're sitting on at home. See $20 at somebody's house, no big deal. See $20,000 in "no-recent-transaction" pings when you drive by? Get a warrant.
Scary.
Who did what now?
one small run in a microwave and the foil hologram is toast. Microwaving euros destroys them already
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There have been serial numbers on notes as long as I can remember. This is the same concept using new technology which will make it possible to digitally sign each serial number.
The scheme will only be used on large notes since those are most likely to be subject to forgery. Applying it to all notes would be to costly but will probably be possible in the future.
This is no secret project(as indicated by the article) since it has been in the news several times in Europe.
RFID is just one of the technologies being examined. It has advantages as well as a pile of disadvantages that other have noted here. Certainly whilst you may spend 1 Euro to protect a 500 Euro note, even that is pretty expensive.
Although in the US, people like to use non-cash methods for large but legal sums, say for a car or a house, in may parts of the EU, people will make major purchases in cash, yes even houses and these people have their cash legally too! Well, some of them. Certainly, there are a lot of quite legitimate users of high value bills here.
The problem here is that counterfeit money costs the issuer. It certainly costs the Fed for all those dud greenbacks. However, no central banker likes to tell how much counterfeit money is being picked up (I have asked). WHther it costs enough that it justifies RFID tags is another matter.
The EU certainly likes to support domestic technology, i.e. Siemens and Phillips, but there are limits.
See my journal, I write things there
it draws power from induction .... when a suitable em source is put near it, it energizes the coils on the chip providing it with power to operate.
no batteries required and life span is indefinite unless the coils or chip is damaged. at 50 microns you couldnt even see the thing except under an electron microscope.