New Hampshire State Rep. Neal Kurk has again introduced HB478, “Regulation of Remotely Readable Devices,” which is intended to restrict RFID in the name of protecting privacy. The bill passed the New Hampshire house 186-170 on January 6, 2010. This marks the third consecutive year that the bill has been introduced, and while some changes [...]
Two new studies, which will be published in the near future, suggest electromagnetic interference (EMI) of pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) can be caused by RFID readers at LF and HF, while UHF results are more mixed. The conclusion of these studies differ somewhat, but both suggest process-related protections be implemented, and longer term, [...]
Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri vetoed a piece of potential legislation (S 0211) restricting RFID in two ways. First, the bill would restrict any municipality from tracking the identity or movement of a student on school grounds, or while being transported to or from school grounds. Second, the bill specifically stated that the personal information [...]
GS1 announced the Foodservice GS1 US Standards initiative, which is designed to bring data synchronization to the food service supply chain. We view this initiative as similar to the Produce Traceability Initiative, and while not specifically intended for RFID, will act as an enabler for more effectively using either RFID or 2D bar codes. In [...]
As an update to our June report on AIMs RFID Experts Group (REG), Georgia Tech Research Lab announced it has begun the process of developing test protocols for RFID in the healthcare setting. Recall, the REG is overseeing the program, which will test if interference takes place from both active and passive products in a [...]
GS1 EPCglobal has published a strategic overview and a technical implementation guide for creating Gen 2 RFID-based electronic article surveillance (EAS). We view positively many aspects of this approach as we profiled in the January 2009 edition of RFID Monthly, where we discussed the worldwide problem of annual shrink approaching $130B. While about 40% of [...]
The Health Industry Business Communications Council announced ANSI / HIBC 4.0, a standard based on HF that is designed for product tagging for healthcare suppliers. The standard illustrates use of RFID within the existing HIBCC Supplier Labeling Standard where bar coding does not satisfy a company’s requirement. A recent HIBCC pre-release seeks to promote the [...]
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a case brought by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund to enjoin enforcement of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) in the State of Michigan. The plaintiffs in the case are individual farmers that raise livestock and believed that forced use of the NAIS is a [...]
The Security Research Group (SRG), a work group within BRIDGE, released a white paper on RFID tag security, which indicated that some existing security aspects are adequate for several of today’s applications. However, the report also concluded more emphasis and work must be done to facilitate increased security in order to expand the base of [...]
In the March edition of RFID Monthly, we discussed the dwindling availability of highway funds given lower tax receipts and that RFID-based tolling was a potential revenue generator. This past June, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee indicated that funding continues to be problematic. Secretary LaHood indicated [...]