RFID Lowdown

Retail and RFID: Disappointment 2006?

Evan Schuman at Extreme RFID (who also writes at Storefront Backtalk) says that according to a report from IDTechEx, 2006 has been a disappointment for RFID and retail, with supplier frustration being a common problem, not to mention technical issues. Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) RFID applications, then, have not done as well as expected.

On the other hand, contactless payment has been more successful via companies like 7-Eleven and Jack-in-the-Box. The latter recently decided to roll out contactless payment in all of their stores across the USA with a minimum of trials. Item-level parts tagging has also done better than expected in some applications including the airline industry.

The key thing to note is that there are so many niche applications of RFID, with some doing better than others. So it's not easy to say, in general, that RFID as a whole is or isn't doing well.

Biometric Or Contactless Payment?

[Commentary] In another fine example of abhorrent use of technology, Sawtry Community College is switching their student payment system from contactless smart cards to a fingerprint identification system. The reasoning is that the new system is more streamlined. [ITR Portal via SecureID News] This reminds me of the Scottish grade school that concocted some story about making all students pay for lunch using palm vein scanners being the only way not to embarass poorer students, who have their meals paid free.

My hypothetical question is, are these justifications for storing fingerprints of an entire student body? While a fingerprint-based biometric door lock for home use seems somewhat acceptable, there's just no accepting biometrics for payment in schools and colleges. (Though one benefit of the college's system is given as reportage for parents, who'll know what their children are eating. Right.)

It's all as bad, in my opinion, as the fear society being created in the UK where police are being given carte blanche to stop motorists (and pedestrians, I'm told by a contact) and force them to give up their fingerprints. We now live in a society where absolutely everyone is treated as a suspect because that's one great way to exert control over the populace to mass sell technology that would otherwise raise ire. This is not, in my outraged opinion, a legitimate use of biometrics.

Do Anti-RF Shields, Sleeves, and Wallets Work?

With all the privacy and security concerns about contactless key fobs, credit cards, payment cards, employee access cards, and e-passports, it's not surprising that several companies have popped up offering anti-RF (radio frequency) sleeves, envelopes, wallets and other forms. Kena Kai is one of the latest. Do any of these anti-RF forms work? Do they block out all appropriate frequencies? Digital Money World recently did a test of some anti-RF products, for different radio frequencies, and they discuss their results.

While some might see the warnings about security as a play for selling anti-RF product, research has proven that vulnerabilities do exist. My feeling is that these items are a good idea, and that contactless card issuing companies should include these as standard issue, after conducting their own tests, instead repeating their disproven mantra that their cards are secure. The same goes for the government and e-passports, etc. Stop saying what you think consumers want to hear and prove it.

RFID Lowdown Blogger Featured On CBC TV

Canada's CBC Network has a news program called Canada Now which ran a segment on Thur Nov 23, 2006, about RFID-enabled contactless credit cards. I was one of the people interviewed for the segment. Instructions on where to find it are below.

Their angle was the security issues of contactless credit cards. I don't mind that they only used 1/6th of the content they taped me for, but the few seconds they did use makes me seem a bit like a digital hayseed, so to speak. That's only because they left out two crucial bits of info that I offered:

(1) The data from contactless credit cards might be skimmable, as per the recent NY Times article, but the likelihood of someone going around in the average city and doing that is probably fairly slim.

(2) Anyone having one of these contactless credit cards, no matter what generation card, should probably use an anti-RF sleeve or wallet to block out unauthorized readers. Better safe than sorry, and it's not like these things are all that expensive.

I'm hoping CBC TV runs another segment with more info. These sleeves should come standard with your credit card.

You can see the video (WMV format) at http://www.cbc.ca/video/. Click on the button that says "Canada NOW" and view the first 30 sec or so. The host's name is Ian Hanumansingh. If you see him, it's the right video. I'm in the intro, but the full segment starts at around 16:35 or so. The reporter's name is Havard Gould. It'll be removed from the main page Friday night (Nov 24), but will probably be available elsewhere on the site, though you'll have to find it - probably under the reporter's name.

Mobile RFID Redux: NFC Contactless Payment

Can NFC (Near Field Communication), aka contactless tech, become anything but huge with such big guns as Sony and NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductors) teaming up [Contactless News] to make the chips for contactless payments in mobile RFID solutions. Not only that, they are calling their cross-bred RFID chip solution a universal contactless chip platform for mobile phones. And apparently GSM mobile providers are salivating over including the technology in their next wave of smart phones. Very smartphones, as they'll be able to make payments, give you access, and even identify you.

While obviously not everyone in the world has a cell phone, estimates are that there are more cellular numbers active in the USA than landlines. An unusual use of RFID-enabled cell phones? As car keys. No doubt people will come up with innovative uses of RF cell phones.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' RFID Trial

Nothing like a trial run when testing out a new form of payment, right? Not for the Jack-in-the-Box chain of fast food restaurants. They didn't bother with a trial of contactless credit cards, planning a complete rollout in all of their stores across the US. They're possibly aiming at a younger market in hopes of seeming cool. Are RFID-enabled contactless credit cards cool, as far as the under-35 consumer is concerned? [via Storefront Backtalk]

Now if they want to show real attitude, they can reject cash altogether, as apparently some parts of the United States, such as Washington, D.C., allow merchants to do so. The proviso is that cash can only be refused if the payment is being made up front, before the food is eaten (in this case). In a restaurant where payment is made after the meal, cash cannot be refused.

RFID Lowdown - Mon Nov 06, 2006

Smartcards And Banking Models
The Australian government plans to adopt a banking system model for the new citizen "access card", which provides access to government services. In other words, access requires entering a PIN code, just like for a debit/ ATM card. However, unlike debit cards, the citizen access cards will have a photo, signature, card number, and an RFID chip containing a digitized photo and signature. [via Australian IT News]

Jack In The Box Goes Contactless
The American chain of Jack in the Box restaurants will be adding contactless payment cards as a new payment option at all of their restaurants - something few other chains can claim. They'll be accepting the typical American Express, MasterCard PayPass, and Visa Contactless cards as well as Discover Network. They expect to have all restaurants rolled out with this payment option by the end of this year. [via Home BusinessWire]

Metal-Compatible RFID Tags
Metal has been the bane of RFID tags but QinetiQ and Crown Holdings have come up with a way to make metal containers with special antenna-less Gen 2 UHF tags. The tags would be able to handle the interference normally associated with metal by redirecting the RF signals. [via RFID Journal]

Biometrics Defeats The School Bully?

If you haven't experienced it yourself, you've seen it happen, at least on TV. The school bully and his lackeys "persuade" the milk money out of the weaker kids. Well a Scottish school has a solution to that problem, but for a different reason. For some reason, they're employing "palm vein scanning" biometrics supposedly as a way to encourage kids to eat better. [InfoWorld via SecureID News]

How does being able to identify a child by their palm encourage them to eat better? Well, the idea is that students from low-income families get free meals at school. But under old methods where students presented a ticket or coupon, they were sometimes picked on/ teased and wouldn't take advantage of the free meal.

It seems like an extreme solution for a good cause, and I still don't see how it encourages them to eat any better, unless students are limited to only healthy items. Because the system is new, privacy groups haven't weighed in yet, but had criticized a previously considered fingerprint-based system.

The InfoWorld article also indicates that the students are happy (why not - it's like something out of science fiction). Something as fun for kids would be a LAKS watch, which has RFID/ NFC technology and can be used for contactless payment. Though it'd probably be too costly a solution, since every student would have to have one under the premise that no student should feel singled out and thus stigmatized. But at least with the biometric system, the school bully can't steal your milk money.

Time Is Money: RFID Watches

In the mid-1980s, the colorful, funky Swiss-made Swatch watches were all the rage. I was young and outlandish and wore up to 5 of them on each arm, and gave away many more as gfits. Now Austria has the funky, colorful LAKS watches [Contactless News] which, despite their normal watch size, incorporate NFC (Near Field Communications) technology for contactless payment. LAKS stands for the initials of the watchmaker, Lucas Alexander Karl Scheybal. In addition to this new line, he has watches that have flash drives and play MP3s. Some incorporate employee access IDs or accept SIM cards and have a USB port. [Note: Swatch has an RFID-enabled watch as well.]

According to the Contactless News article, contactless-enabled watches have been in use for lift tickets at ski resorts for years. But the LAKS watches have additional features which allow it to be used for a variety of functions including transit, access, employee ID, etc. And it's popular, of all places, in Shanghai, China. (A recently-announced Chinese project resulted in an order for 125 million contactless, throwaway train tickets.)

LAKS has other watches, some of which were used at the FIFA World Cup (soccer) this year - and event that was massively RFID-enabled. This is a nice, handy way of combining a lot of RF-related functionality into a small, useful form factor - one that's already familiar and acceptable to consumers. Personally, I think we're going to see a lot more radio frequency tech incorporated into watches and wristband-type gadgets and gizmos. That, or something like the Korean MP3 player that also pays for train tickets.

RFID Goes Mobile

RFID News has an article on how RFID is coming to wireless handheld devices and PDAs. WJ Communications has a new Gen2 RFID chipset geared towards both consumer and enterprise mobile devices. With some countries (such as the USA) having more mobile phones than landlines, and with companies like Nokia buying into RFID companies, the writing's on the wall. RFID is going to mobile, whether you like it or not.

Korea, France, and other countries are already testing the ability to pay with your phone for transit, parking (tickets), and/or movie tickets, using contactless technology embedded into (specific) mobile phones. Earlier this year, INSIDE Contactless offered an SD (Secure Digital) card-based contactless reader/writer module for Palm and Pocket PC devices. The module can read and write tags for six different protocols. TradeWind Technologies also has plug and play solutions for mobile devices.

It might seem to some people like a solution for a problem that doesn't exist, but a bit of reflection shows that RFID does actually make payment more convenient in some scenarios.

RFID Applications: Contactless Payment

[This post is part of a short series aimed at giving a quick overview of existing and future applications of RFID - radio frequencyidentification - technology .] RFID has been used for contactless payment for over a decade in the form of both smart cards the size of a credit card as well as small cylinders used as key fobs. Initial trials for key fobs were for payment at gas stations and their snack bars. More recently, contactless payment is being tested via cell phones embedded with an RFID chip.

In the case of contactless cards, some people are concerned over the privacy aspects of contactless card use. One concern is that cash is anonymous; contactless cards are generally not (some are, some are not). Another issue that crops up is the lack of privacy due to RFID use in CRM (Customer Relationship Management). If a retailer you frequent tracks all of your purchases thanks to item-level tagging and a contactless credit card, they have a record of your shopping behavior. While retailers may think that this enables them to provide CRM functions, consumers might be thinking that they don't want this type of information recorded. Though it already happens even without item-level tagging, if you use either a debit/ ATM card or credit card. RFID doesn't change that.

As for issues about data being intercepted from smart cards, contactless cards in particular have a read range of only a few centimeters, so this is highly unlikely. There, however, protective, RF-blocking wallets and sleeves available for those that are concerned.

No Cash, Please

This is an interesting development regarding currency that I wasn't previously aware of. In some parts of the United States, it is perfectly legal for some merchants not to accept cash. Whether they can or not depends on the nature of the transaction and how the "debt" is incurred, according to an article by Dr. Katherine Albrecht. This of course opens up the way for a potentially cashless society, i.e., RFID-enabled contactless credit cards.

As person who does not use credit cards myself, but does use online payment processors such as Paypal, it's tough for me to maintain my old stance of keeping some cold, hard cash (literally) circulating in society, without sounding hypocritical, but there it is. My naive consumer point of view is that replacing currency entirely with contactless smartcards increases the cost of living. Someone has to pay for the cost of these cards. Whereas the cost of making bills and coins is paid for by taxes. If we become a cashless society, will our taxes be reduced accordingly? One might argue that the increased use of debit and credit cards without RFID already costs in bank fees, but I warrant that RFID-based cards cost significantly more.

Cubic Wins Award For Transit Smart Cards

--By Raj Dash, Staff Writer

Back when I lived in the big city, in my mid-twenties, I did a lot of consulting in neighboring cities and towns. While I lived in the heart of downtown, with access to a fairly good transit system with subway, buses and streetcars (no, not San Francisco), I often had to use up to three or four different systems to get to client offices. I could put up with the 1-1.5 hour trips in each direction, but trying to keep enough change, especially during the bitter cold of winter, was not enjoyable. It would have been nice to have a single transit card that I could use for all of them.

Well, Frost & Sullivan has awarded their Innovation & Advancement award to Cubic Transportation for just such a reason. Cubic links multiple transit operators and simultaneously offers a single payment system. This obviously makes things convenient for citizens in metropolitan areas where there are satellite towns and cities with their own transit systems. All they need is a single RFID-enabled contactless transit card.

The company also came up with a Tri-Reader that processes a number of ISO 14443-compliant (credit card form factor) contactless smart cards, including those used by occasional riders such as tourists. Cubic projects are ongoing in London (UK), South East Queensland (Australia) and a number of US cities including New York/ New Jersey, Washington, D.C./ Maryland, Atlanta, L.A., San Francisco and others. Another company working on innovative contactless transit ticketing is Innovision, with their Jewel chip. RFID is also being used to improve transit service.

[via Contactless News]

Scottish Bank Contactless Trial

--By Raj Dash, Staff Writer

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is testing special dual-interface smart debit cards, supplied by Giesecke & Devrient, that are EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) compliant. They are the first European financial institution to use smart cards. During the trial, the only users are RBS employees. Giesecke & Devrient are the second-largest smart card manufacturer in the world. [via Contactless News]

Current research is showing that smart cards are going over well with Americans, in marked contrast to poorly-received trials in Canada in the early 1990s. While the RBS trial is the first of its kind in Europe, Paris has a contactless fare-payment trial whereby passengers use their RFID-enabled cell phones to pay transit fares. Warsaw, Poland is using contactless cards for transit and parking payments.