IBM anounces Clipped Tag technology for retail RFID
Customers nervous about surveillance can cut off a portion of the tag, thereby restricting the range to a few inches; system maximizes the utility of RFID for check-out management while respecting privacy; remaining RFID range permits product returns
The retail industry has long been interested in RFID technology, in large part due to the potential to speed up customer check out. Ideally, a customer waiting in line would find that his clothes or CDs had already been rung up by the time he approached the counter — much in the same way that DHS hopes its RFID-enabled PASS card will permit faster processing at the border. The only problem, however, is the issue of privacy. Customers have learned to be wary of RFID, and though it is doubtful a criminal would have much to gain by knowing a person’s clothes were manufactured by Calvin Klein and sold at Macy’s, there is no use arguing about it.
The best thing instead is to work around the problem. That is just what IBM is doing. The company announced this week the availablility of Clipped Tag, an RFID-enabled label that permits the customer to restrict RFID range from thirty feet to a few inches by tearing off part of the tag. This leaves the RFID capability in place for future readings, in case the customer wants to return the product. “We placed the privacy safeguards in the hands of the consumer in a simple process that’s akin to tearing a single stamp off a sheet of stamps,” said BM’s Paul Moskowitz, Clipped Tag’s inventor. “You can see the modification, and the tag is still usable for downstream events.”
IBM has partnered with Markham, Canada-based Marnlen RFiD and Irvine, California-based Printronixto manufacture the tags for commercial use.
-read more in this Red Herring report
