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RFID Production to Increase 25 fold by 2010

Posted by samzenpus on from the tag-you're-always-it dept.

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?"

40 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Thank God... by BHennessy · · Score: 5, Funny

    that I got in early and made my duct-tape / tinfoil wallet already.

    1. Re:Thank God... by subterfuge · · Score: 3, Funny

      but they can still track you by the tag they hid on the outside surface of the tape...

  2. RFID and the Average Person by kjh1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Whoever Has the Most Toys Wins!
    1. Re:RFID and the Average Person by DrEldarion · · Score: 4, Funny

      But dude! People will be able to tell that you just shopped at The Gap by JUST BEING NEAR YOUR BAG. And if people know that, just WHERE will all your geek-cred go?

      Right out the window, that's where.

      And don't even get me started on all the poor unskilled walmart cashiers that will lose their jobs because a shopping cart will be able to be read accurately and automatically. They might actually have to learn to do something useful with their lives, and damn it, this is America, and they shouldn't have to do that!

    2. Re:RFID and the Average Person by ls+-la · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Get your RFID scanners before the government decides you shouldn't know where they are or what data they contain unless you're a multinational corporation. You know the way Bush has been handling national security they'll be illegal before long (like as soon as RFID appears in passports, beginning of 2007 IIRC). Especially if scanners/readers get popular.

    3. Re:RFID and the Average Person by _ph1ux_ · · Score: 5, Informative

      I have one of the most highly polished Tin-Foil-Hats around, but I am not terribly worried about RFID, not the commercially advertised incarnations anyway.

      I work as the IT manager for the largest RFID company in the world. We are *the* supplier of RFID tags and devices to the DoD. With the tags and devices available from my company and others; Matrics, Alien etc.. you needent worry. These tags are too expensive, or also too big and too weak to be of concern to people. (Expensive being the primary gating item to ubiquity)

      However - i would remind people that a cell phone is far more an unknown and exploitable device than the current commercially advertised and known RFID tags.

      RFID is a phenomenon that has been known about for a long time. (as are cell phones which were first proofed in the 40s) and falls into two categories; Active or Passive. Active tags have a battery which powers the antennae - passive tags merely respond to RF waves that pass through them and "reply" with a unique signature.

      Passive tags hold very little data, usually just an ID - or serial number (around 1K-ish - historically). Active tags have memory (256/512K ish) and can hold real data, such as the manifest of a shipping container.

      The data still needs to be read and dealt with in a meaningful way. Passive IDs need to be correlated to a backend DB which equates the ID with some meaningful data, such as a record of what that ID actually represents.

      Active tags are a bit more flexible in that they can provide info which does not necessarily require access to a backed DB in order to understand what the tag is identifying, or what that container holds.

      My company only produces Active tags. These tags are large, expensive and meant for tracking THINGS. Containers specifically - or large cost items, such as a vehicle(parts). Our tags are used on shipping containers and trucks, and pose no threat to personal privacy, unless you dont want people (yourself) to know what you placed inside some container which is being shipped from one port to the next.

      Active tags, backed by batteries, arent just capable of greater range, they are capable of TELLING the reader system about events that occur. For example - we have some tags which have sensors on them. Light, temp. humidity, shock etc. These sensors can be set to alert if they go off or above threshold. This is important when you are concerned about the viability/integrity of the property the tag is "watching". Some medications spoil if exposed to certain temperatures for extended periods of time. The sensor tag can monitor temp then alert if it gets too high for too long. Some munitions automatically ARM themselves if they receive a certain amount of shock. so the tags would warn if a munition is armed, important to know if your going to be moving a box of explosives via crane or forklift.

      Active tags cost between 60 and 85 dollars per tag. Are roughly 4" long and 1" high and 1.5" wide. Active tags run at 433 megahertz and 123 kilohertz (the two frequencies are used for two different functions: reading data from the tag (433) or sending commands to the tag (123)).

      There are some new active tags which are smaller, and run on 802.11 (wifi) frequencies, but there are a great number of challenges in that freq. range.

      Passive tags are a losing proposition for most companies as the manufacturing cost is greater than what the tag can be sold for. Before tags can be ubiquitous in products - they need to be throw-away cheap. some person I dont know said that the magic number for passive tags was .05 (a nickel) - but one thing that hasnt been talked about with regards to the mass use of RFID is the backend databases and logic application required to actually do anything with the data read from tags. This obviously implies the reader infrastructure as well.

      There is a lot of supporting infrastructure required to do anything of interest with RFID - its not just that you deploy a bunch of tags and all of a sudden you c

    4. Re:RFID and the Average Person by core+plexus · · Score: 2, Interesting
      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.

  3. Nearly oxymoronic there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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?"


    The first half of this quote concerns pallets in a warehouse, something with no conceivable privacy implications of any kind. The second half of this quite asks how anyone could approve of this given its "obvious privacy flaws".

    Uhhhhhhh... right.

    So let's say I buy a pair of shoes with an RFID tag in them and I don't like this. Never mind I haven't heard of a single shoe manufacturer proposing to do this, let's just say it happens. All I should have to do is run the shoes through the microwave and the RFID tag should fry, right?
    1. Re:Nearly oxymoronic there by penguin_strut · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ugh. Remind me never to eat anything out of your microwave. MIT's already shown us some of the clandestine cell-phone tracking options available. With all the cameras, phones, retinal scanners, ID cards and genetic fingerprinting available in the coming years, why would they need RFID tags? Hell, windows are a privacy risk. Just don't go outside, speak loudly, or use anything made later than Atari and you should be fine.

    2. Re:Nearly oxymoronic there by jmv · · Score: 2, Funny

      So let's say I buy a pair of shoes with an RFID tag in them and I don't like this. Never mind I haven't heard of a single shoe manufacturer proposing to do this, let's just say it happens. All I should have to do is run the shoes through the microwave and the RFID tag should fry, right?

      I just bought a pair of skis that have RFID tags in them. What do you suggest I do?

      --
      Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
  4. Privacy fatigue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    "RFID has obvious privacy flaws, why is the world pointed in the direction of RFID?"

    Yeah, because that crate of 300 rubber chickens from Shanghai really needs "privacy" as it makes its way from Dock 42 in Seattle to some anonymous Wal-Mart stockroom in Piedmont, Arizona.

    The annoying thing is that when they come for me, there will be plenty of people left to speak up for me, but nobody will be listening. Quit crying "wolf" over every meme that exits the blogosphere, fer Pete's sake.

  5. 33 Billion !!! by 2674 · · Score: 3, Funny

    RFID my Shiny Metal Ass!!!

  6. Obvious Privacy Flaws by jasonditz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Warrantless wiretapping, anti-anonymity laws, calls for heavier regulation of pre-pay cell phone purchases, video cameras on street corners, "free speech zones" where they ask you to show ID.

    RFID is going in the same direction as the rest of the world, which is away from individual privacy vis-a-vis the state and vis-a-vis the large, "trustworthy" corporation

  7. Car Keys by borisborf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  8. Most innovated use of rfid by truckaxle · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

    1. Re:Most innovated use of rfid by BHennessy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This could be how future governments view us.

  9. In other news... by javaDragon · · Score: 2, Funny
    RFID Zapper production set to increase 1000 folds during the same period.

    And that's just because most beople can't afford A real EMP shock generator

    --
    -- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
  10. Google House by xiphoris · · Score: 4, Funny

    Perhaps once it becomes standard that pretty much everything is tagged with RFID, maybe I'll be able to use Google House to find that sock I lost a year ago! I know it's here somewhere...

  11. Non-RFID companies popping up? by farmhick · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

    --
    I have to stop wasting so much time reading Slashdot. It's interfering with my crystal meth addiction.
  12. r.e.a.c.t.i.o.n.a.r.y. that is how we spell.... by riprjak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh dear; what an alarmist post.

    Yes, granted, RFID does have some privacy implications when applied in P.O.S. applications, hospitals and such like.

    However, AFAIK, by far and above the largest use is in automotive security, logistics and workflow handling. Boxes dont care if people know whats in them, but it sure as shit makes the warehouse easier to manage if your robot/forklift knows what is in those boxes and automagically tracks stock in and out. Even walmart would still use RFID even if they weren't allowed to use it on stock in shop, because the would still use it for shipment and bulk stock management.

    Most of the increased use of RFID will still remain back office, in factories, warehouses and other transit points. Put your tinfoil hats away.

    *IF* the article discussed governments planning to RFID tag humans behind the left ear, then, perhaps, we would have a major issue.

    However, the small number of privacy impacting cases aside, RFID is an incredibly flexible technology. In factory workflow planning, it allows us to remove human error from data logging. The workstation AUTOMATICALLY presents you with the correct fittings for component G because it knows you are assembling component G and not component W. Barcodes dont even come close.

    The inventory management system knows what stock levels you have in the Finished Goods Inventory (FGI) because it has scanned the RFID bearing kanban's as the goods were loaded into the FGI racks.

    Even if EVERY SINGLE application which impacted privacy was disallowed and canned; RFID use would still exponentially increase as people replace laser based barcode systems with RFID because it is more reliable (in a maintenance sense), easier and ultimately cheaper. Furthermore, it allows for far more efficient automated handling systems to be designed because you no longer have the limitation that every box needs to be in a direct line of sight for the scanner.

    So, perhaps, just perhaps, the increased use of RFID *MIGHT* be in aid of improving the efficiency of the manufacturing and logistics industry and *NOT* to track where you take your pr0n. Considering how much whining about offshoring goes on here, you would think productivity technologies might get a better hearing.

    Ah well. Just my Engineers $0.02 AUD
    err!
    jak.

    1. Re:r.e.a.c.t.i.o.n.a.r.y. that is how we spell.... by 1u3hr · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Oh dear; what an alarmist post.

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

  13. News just in by Belseth · · Score: 5, Funny

    A Walmart was struck with an EMP weapon by terrorist. All RFID tags were wiped out causing chaos. No longer able to track customers purchases the marketing department has applied for disaster relief funds. The White House responded and FEMA was on the scene within the hour to help in the replacement of the lost tags. The President stated that allowing the customers to go untracked was a major victory for the terrorist and the situation must be resolved as quickly as possible. Haliburton is expected to deliver the new tags before the store opens tomorrow. The 50 billion dollar RFID tag replacement program was considered a bargin given the potential loss to the Walmart marketing department.

    1. Re:News just in by msormune · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes, because in US the most terrifying situation is not when a lot of people lose lives, but when a lot of people are stoppped from buying useless crap.

  14. RFID in the supply chain by zjbs14 · · Score: 4, Informative
    For those who want to understand more about the real-world use of RFID, and not just spout alarmist paranoia, here's a link to EPCglobal, the standards group that defines RFID tag and data interchange for supply chain applications.

    --
    No sig, sorry.
  15. I can't wait for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm a regular poster here, who - ironically enough - is going AC for this post to preserve my privacy.

    "...why is the world pointed in the direction of RFID?"

    Because it is a labor-saving device.
    I own a bookstore. It is the largest independant bookstore in a 3+ million city in the US. Shelving books and keeping track of them is one of my biggest expenses in terms of labor. And it is boring labor. The employees gnerally find it the most unpleasant part of the job aside from cleaning the toilets.

    I can't wait to be able to do inventory by just walking along the isle with a scanner. It will save me many thousands of dollars every year. And the employees will be happier.

    I don't want to intrude on your privacy. I'd be quite happy if RFIDs work only in my store and not in your home. But I'm going to use them because they make my life easier and they will save my money.

    1. Re:I can't wait for them by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Here here. It's posts like yours that make me hold out hope that not everyone on Slashdot is a reactionary 14 year old.

      Hats off to you sir, and I hope your eventual RFID roll-out occurs. I would be more then happy to purchase a book from your store =)

    2. Re:I can't wait for them by smithberry · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.)

  16. fold? am I the only geek on /.? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    25 fold and 25 times are not the same thing! how could this not be noticed? has slashdot gone that downhill? for the moronic: fold comes from the idea of folding, for example, a piece of paper, you fold it once you have 2, twice you have 4, 3 times you have 8 sections...fold is exponential...duh

  17. So for all of you concerned about RFID by joeflies · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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?

  18. Which RFID company to invest in... by Douglas+Simmons · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Flash memory is to SanDisk as RFID technology is to ______?

    1. Re:Which RFID company to invest in... by zjbs14 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Alien Technologies http://www.alientechnology.com/
      Impinj http://www.impinj.com/
      Intermec http://www.intermec.com/

      --
      No sig, sorry.
  19. Only Korean Generals need to RFID their troops by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Only N^GSouth Korean Generals need to RFID-tag their troops.

    They didn't have this problem in Soviet Russia. In Soviet Russia, troops tagged you.

  20. Why? by mr_zorg · · Score: 3, Insightful
    RFID has obvious privacy flaws, why is the world pointed in the direction of RFID?

    Because they handily solve so many pressing problems? Don't blame the technology for its misuse, that's the fault of people. Stores can deactivate RFID tags just as they remove the current crop of anti-theft devices. If they don't, don't shop there!

    1. Re:Why? by cogg · · Score: 2, Interesting
      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!
      --
      "Never 'clear the air'. Instead, investigate all the subtle nuances of the word 'fester'." - R. Candappa
  21. RFID brings MANY Privacy Considerations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  22. This isn't good by fonos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As a person who is forced to carry around an ID with RFID implemented into it, I can say this sucks. I go to an international school in Beijing, and to get any food at all, you need what they call a "smart card" which is basically just an ID card with your picture on it but it has RFID implemented into it. School policy is you can't pay straight-up cash for food which is really annoying seeing that everything you purchase via your smart card is logged. My parents can just go to the web interface and look at what I've been eating or whatever.

    Now this isn't RFID's fault, the same thing could be possible with using magnetic stripes, but it's policy and the logging of things that's the privacy invasion. RFID just makes things easier for those wanting to get your log your information and stuff. All I have to say is, get the duct tape RFID blocking wallets now! ^_^

  23. Where the difference lies. by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And a model no. + serial no. DOESN'T uniquely identify an instance of an item somehow? Bought a laptop lately? Check the serial no. on the back, it will almost certainly be unique to that laptop.

    But that's not the same sort of problem. My laptop's serial number is not encoded in any discernible way in my system's software (I wiped the bundled software when I got it); if I walk down the street, my movements cannot be tracked by it. When the laptop is turned off and sitting in its briefcase, it is nontrivial to read its serial number.

    There is no real feasible way to do the orwellian thing with RFID in consumer products without some ridiculously huge database and infrastructure as well as cooperation between millions of seperate stores, govt, competing producers etc etc.

    My point is that the ridiculously huge database you hand-wave away already exists. Consider a receipt from my local Wal-Mart. It has a unique number on it, so that they can, if I return something, pull up the record of the transaction. This transaction, if I used a credit or debit card, has my name on it. Currently, serial numbers are not on this transaction record, because it would be difficult to put them on it; they're not on the barcodes. However, moving to RFIDs would make it trivial to do so. Thus, we have a link between the consumer and the purchased item.

    If you recall, the TIA program was to fuse government and commercial databases. The idea isn't so far-fetched.

    The same FUD was spread when barcode readers and credit cards came into play.
    When the government starts trying to implant an RFID chip in my neck and IS installing readers in every lampost I'll be one of the first to freak out and make a big fuss, but untill then I'm gunna go ahead and be content with accepting RFID for what it is; another useful technology making life easier and the world more efficient.

    I'd say it'd be a bit late at that point.

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
  24. The problem is telling them apart .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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).

  25. Re:No. No, it's not. by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is no real feasible way to do the orwellian thing with RFID in consumer products without some ridiculously huge database and infrastructure as well as cooperation between millions of seperate stores, govt, competing producers etc etc.

    I belive that IPv6 address space contains enough unique IPs to have something like a million per square metre of the earth's surface. IPv6 is going to be implemented.

    It's simply a question of scaling. Consider the RFID tag to be like a unique IP. Can you locate that ID amid distruibuted databases? Potentially yes.

    Marketers want this. The lust for it. If you tag it, they will find a way to grok it.

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
  26. Does anyone care to propose a solution? by RobinH · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    --
    "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain