RFID Production to Increase 25 fold by 2010

Luke PiWalker writes "The number of RFID tags produced worldwide is expected to increase more than 25 fold between 2005 and 2010, reaching 33 billion, according to market research company In-Stat. Total production of RFID tags in 2005 reached more than 1.3 billion, according to a recent report. RFID production will vary widely by industry segment for several years -- for example, RFID has been used in automotive keys since 1991, with 150 million units now in use, a quantity that greatly exceeded other segments until recently, according to In-Stat. "By far the biggest RFID segment in coming years will be supply chain management," said Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst, in a statement. "This segment will account for the largest number of tags/labels from 2005 through 2010." RFID has obvious privacy flaws, why is the world pointed in the direction of RFID?"

Comments

RFID and the Average Person

[kjh1]

I can't help thinking that the average person is still pretty clueless about RFID tags and will still be even when there are 25x as many! Will understanding of RFID tags be similar to that of browser cookies? Will the security implications be blown out of proportion in a similar way? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about computer security, but cookies hardly scare me, and so far, RFID tags don't scare me too much. The counter solution should be pretty simple - get an RFID scanner so you know if there are any 'hidden' ones about.

Re:RFID and the Average Person

[core plexus]

Excellent and informative post. "These tags are too expensive, or also too big and too weak to be of concern to people."

Today, perhaps. But tomorrow? :"An unusual pool of scientific talent at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, combined with new nanofabrication and nanocharacterization instruments, is helping to open a new frontier in electronics, to be made up of very small and very fast devices." and ""When the first computer hard disk was introduced 50 years ago, it required a rather large size to store each bit of digital information. On today's computer disks, the corresponding size is about one-50-millionth of that needed in the original disks. We are now moving well into the nanoscale range, and nanomagnetism is one of the real drivers of the nanotechnology field.""

Will it take 50 years to make RFID tags ubiquitous? Probably not.

Car Keys

[borisborf]

It will be interesting to see if this drives down the cost of RFID keys for cars (as mentioned in the article). Right now, Chrysler wants a couple hundred bucks for a copy of the key to each of my cars. I cant just head to Walmart and get myself a fifty cent copy.

Most innovated use of rfid

[truckaxle]

No bull shit check out these guys putting rfid in cows. Looks like they check the cows health and if she is in heat!

Re:Most innovated use of rfid

[BHennessy]

This could be how future governments view us.

Non-RFID companies popping up?

[farmhick]

I wonder if there will be specialty companies that guarantee their products are RFID free. Their shipping containers may use them, since they are the next step for inventory control. But what of smaller companies that would make or sell clothing with no imbedded RFIDs, which are of course all of our concerns?

Just like there is 'hemp' clothing that seems to be bought as a stand against "The Man", does anyone see 'RDID-free' as a growing market? And if so, how long until they are bought out by the large corporations, and tags start going in?

So for all of you concerned about RFID

[joeflies]

Did you find that the RFID chip in your car keys is a violation of your privacy? Did you take measures to remove it?

Do you decline to use your badge to open the building door at work?

Is it only a violation of privacy when it's used in supply chain management?

Re:r.e.a.c.t.i.o.n.a.r.y. that is how we spell....

[1u3hr]

Oh dear; what an alarmist post.

That's the whole idea. Look at the submitter's linked web page.

RFID brings MANY Privacy Considerations

[Anonymous Coward]

From http://www.spychips.com/ - just one of many examples:

Q: Is it true there are plans to put RFID chips in Euro banknotes?
A: Hitachi has been working with the European Central Bank on the idea of putting RFID chips into Euro banknotes. This would eliminate the anonymity of cash by making it trackable. In essence, it would "register" your cash to you when you get it from the teller or take it out of the ATM. Euro banknotes could be RFID tagged as early as 2005. See: "Euro Notes May be Radio Tagged" at http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t295-s2135074,00. html for details.

Re:Why?

[cogg]

Stores can deactivate RFID tags just as they remove the current crop of anti-theft devices. If they don't, don't shop there!

The chances are they will. Why pay for two technologies, when you can pay for one. Retailers could use the RFID tag for inventory management and for as anti-theft. If it is used for anti-theft, then it will likely be disabled at the sales counter.
So if you don't want active RFID tags , don't steal!

The problem is telling them apart ..

[Anonymous Coward]

If many items will contain RFIDs it will pose a design challenge: how to isolate 'yours' from the rest? I can already see the problem in London Underground: the Oyster card (stored value travel card) is RFID based, but if you have another RFID card in the same holder (like my ID badge) it fails until you take the two apart.

In this case it's easy to separate the two, but what if you don't even know you've been 'wired' with RFIDs in other articles? On the bright side, it at least means that you can use a London Underground scanner to check (it will tell you if it scans a code by stating that that code 'is not registered' ;-).

Now expand that to world + dog having RFIDs all over - you will be required to scann all the tags you find, and then match that whole collection against your 'own' list. Enter next problem: the volume of tags you need to match, and what you should do with a mismatch. Say you use it for access control: does the wrong tag mean someone's trying to break the system?

At leats privacy isn't that much of an issue as long as they truly randomise the numbering.

Given what I've seen of late of privacy violations (usually in the name of "fighting terrorism") I don't hold out much hope there either, so overall it really looks like the next Bad Idea heading your way. Combine that with DRM and you'll see we have a nice time coming for technology risk management. It might be worth retraining as a lawyer - they'll be laughing all the way to the bank on this (and, IMHO, rightly so, it's not like most technical people haven't been flagging these problems for years).

Re:I can't wait for them

[smithberry]

Yep I agree. I work in a library and hunting for missing books is the worst part of the job (we have a cleaning staff for the toilets :-) ). If every book was RFID tagged, the (already compterised) library catalog wouldn't just say "on the shelves" it could say (for sure) which shelf. And if a book was missing, we'd know before we spent an hour hunting through every shelf.

So I see RFID a bit like a car. Lots of folk die in car accidents, but for society as a whole the benefits seem to out weigh the problems. (although I doubt RFID will directly kill quite so many.)

Does anyone care to propose a solution?

[RobinH]

Does anyone care to propose a solution? How about this:

Limit RFID technology implanted in commercially available goods to a read distance of, say, 12 inches, and a mandatory lifespan of tags to 6 months, *or* require that tags be removed or disabled when the transaction is complete. The industry still gets useful technology, and we get our privacy.