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.

Comments

durability

[Alien54]

[...] embed radio frequency identification tags into the very fibers of euro bank notes by 2005, EE Times has learned. [...] would create an instant mass market for RFID chips, which have long sought profitable application. [...] no bank notes in the world today employ such a technology

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.

RFID basics

[EMIce]

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.

nothing new, just in currency

[jdclucidly]

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.

Re:nothing new, just in currency

[Zathrus]

Actually, put several coils or strips together and you will change their reflective signature. Generally in ways that aren't readily predictable (so, no, you couldn't get a signature back and say "that's two 10 Euro notes!"). So no, people aren't going to be able to magically read how much money is in your pocket. At least not unless you carefully make sure that none of the strips are aligned in the same direction, none are touching each other, etc.

It's also defeated easily by wrapping other foil around the primary strip/coil/etc. - as silly as it sounds, if you wrapped your wallet with aluminum foil, it'd be as good as scrambled.

Finally, tracking systems break pretty fast. Go to the ATM, get some Euro notes that now belong to "you". Go to lunch with a friend and have him pay by check, credit, whatever and you pay him in cash. That's an untrackable transaction. These kinds of transactions happen constantly, and there's no way to trace them. (Yes, get paranoid - do the above enough with one person and They will figure out that You and Him are friends, and then They will watch both of You. When you want to step back to reality, let me know).

Didn't this kind of thing come up when the US Treasury started adding magstripes to $100, $50, and $20 bills?

This is nothing new..

[linq]

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.

Not a project - just a feasibility study

[hughk]

There are a number of projects that have been introduced for the further protection of the Euro. There are particularly concerns about the new high-value notes, which are substantially greater in value than is commonly used in many EU countries.

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.