Simple idea could solve tricky RFID privacy issue

Sometimes innovative ideas are simple. Here’s one: an RFID chip with a perforated edge that allows consumers to tear off part of the antenna after purchasing an item, reducing the distance of the signal and easing privacy concerns.

The Clipped Tag label is the brainchild of Paul Moskowitz, an inventor and researcher at IBM.

Ultrahigh frequency radio frequency identification tags are generally readable at distances up to 30 feet, but the Clipped Tag innovation reduces that distance to between 1 and 2 inches. “This means that the tag can only be read if the consumer holds the tag up to a reader,” Moskowitz said Wednesday. “It puts choice in the hands of the consumer.”

Numerous retailers, including Germany’s Metro and Wal-Mart in the United States, view RFID as a way to manage the huge flow of merchandise in and out of stores more effectively, while reducing inventory losses and labor costs. But privacy and civil liberties advocacy groups worry that the smart-tag technology could create an Orwellian world in which sales clerks or law enforcement officials could remotely read a handbag’s contents or track a consumer’s whereabouts.

Technology is afoot to deactivate tags permanently, such as the EPCglobal Gen2 “kill” command, but such systems also have some disadvantages. Data in killed tags can’t be retrieved, posing a problem for product recalls or returns.

With Clipped Tag technology, the data remains intact, but its remote readability is dramatically reduced.

What does it look like? Imagine a price tag with a small notch, like the one on a bag of potato chips. If you want to turn the long-range RFID chip into a short-range one, tear along the perforated edge and remove a portion of the antenna. It’s as simple as that. What’s more: “You have a visible indication that you have altered the tag,” Moskowitz says.

IBM has tested the commercial adaptability of the Clipped Tag system with Marnlen Management Ltd., which manufacturers RFID labels, and Printronix, a producer of printing systems.