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By Gaetano Borriello, Guest Editor

Cheap, tiny, plentiful radio-frequency identification


tags will make it possible to tag almost everything,
spurring a revolution in how physical objects
interact with information services.

TAGGING
RFID:
THE WORLD
Uniquely identifying specific objects is a powerful capability, useful in
classifying, counting, and organizing anything. These abilities are
essential to many aspects of modern life, including manufacturing, the
logistics of distribution, and the various stages of supply chains, from
manufacturing to retail. Before the electronic era, identification had to
be done visually—explicitly by humans observing and noting the
characteristics of objects. When dealing with objects that appeared to
be identical or very similar, people were forced by necessity to add dis-
tinguishing markings. They could then recognize them in order to
determine the identity of the marked object.
Even today, identification systems consist of identifying markings and
ways to read them. The first readers were humans; technical innovations
subsequently yielded photo-detectors, cameras, and lasers that were
adapted and transformed into readers. The markings evolved into the
fantastically popular bar code printed on almost every conceivable piece
of packaging moved and sold worldwide.
ILLUSTRATION BY STEVE ADLER

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COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM September 2005/Vol. 48, No. 9 35
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is the lat- cost-effective. So much so that RFID tags are begin-
est technology to be useful for precisely identifying ning to compete with printed bar codes in supply
objects [3]. It uses radio waves to read an object’s chain management.
markings in the form of a unique identifying num- It is also important to keep in mind that passive
ber stored on an attached or embedded silicon chip. RFID tags are much more than bar code replace-
There are two types of RFID tag: active and passive. ments in terms of both the base technology and its
Active tags are similar to the wireless nodes of sensor applications. They are, for example, more flexible for
networks. The difference is in their usage models, tracking items in modern highly complex automated
not in their capabilities. Sensor-network nodes supply chains, because they are readable without a
include sensors to measure and report on properties line-of-sight requirement and from much farther
(such as temperature and movement) of their envi- away, as well as being easily embedded in objects
ronments, while active tags focus on providing only without marring their appearance. In addition, they
an identification number and possibly some infor- are capable of holding orders of magnitude more
mation (such as a description or transportation his- data that can be written by RFID transponders (so
tory) relating to the tagged object. readers become potential writers), enabling objects to
carry their own database information. Moreover, new
Unlike active tags, passive tags provide generations of RFID tags include sensing capabilities
only an identifying number when the tags themselves that make it possible to expand the scale of sensor
are “illuminated” by the radio waves emitted by a networks by providing cheap and numerous sensing
specialized reader. The electric field radiated by the points.
reader’s antenna serves two purposes: provide the tag Finding more and more uses in supply chain
with power and function as an asymmetric commu- applications, RFID tags are likely to revolutionize
nication link between reader and tag. The tag har- distribution networks, permitting crates and pallets
vests all the power it needs from the reader’s of goods to be traced from the manufacturer through
emanations and communicates by modulating the the global transportation system and into retail stores
reflected electric field. This ability to wirelessly draw worldwide. Many industries and government agen-
power is what makes passive RFID tags particularly cies, including some of the biggest retailers in the
appealing; they operate without batteries or an U.S. (such as Wal-Mart and Target), as well as the
autonomous radio, so they can be very small and biggest agency in the U.S. Government (the Depart-
very cheap while opening up entirely new and inter- ment of Defense) mandate the use of RFID tags at
esting design possibilities. the pallet level by all of their suppliers. Pilot projects
We can imagine a future where passive RFID tags in these and other organizations are beginning to
are in every manufactured object and maybe even in evaluate the use of passive tags even at the item level.
some non-manufactured ones (such as natural Passive RFID tags deliver much more than identi-
resources, animals, and people). The technology fication capabilities. That’s why this special section
promises orders-of-magnitude greater efficiency and includes a set of articles that highlight emerging
accuracy than was possible with previous identifica- RFID uses of and challenges in sensing, mobility,
tion technologies. Although RFID is not a recent personal privacy, data security, and consumer appli-
development [2], advances in semiconductor tech- cations. While deliberately not including RFIDs in
nology have now made it practical and much more the manufacturing supply chain (it’s been covered

We can imagine a future where passive RFID tags


are in every manufactured object and maybe even in
some non-manufactured ones (such as natural resources,
animals, and people).

36 September 2005/Vol. 48, No. 9 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM


extensively in the industry’s literature), we instead tific discovery may be to most of us, many museum
emphasize what will happen when RFID tags, read- visitors, in fact, forgo this potentially rewarding expe-
ers, and related databases start being commonplace in rience, fearing it could open them up to violations of
the consumer sphere—beyond the retail counter, as personal privacy.
well as behind it. Miyako Ohkubo et al. address the problem of lost
Many sensor-network researchers believe the addi- personal privacy head on, providing a way to contin-
tion of sensing to RFID tags will make them the ideal uously scramble a tag’s ID after every read so that
node for increasing the physical coverage of these net- only the tag’s authorized users are able to keep track
works. The idea is to use an RFID reader that is part of their scrambled IDs.
of a larger sensor network to query a much larger Oliver Günther and Sarah Spiekermann take on
(and cheaper) collection of RFID tag-based sensors. the consumer’s view of the inherent risks to their per-
Joshua R. Smith et al. describe an approach to inte- sonal data privacy in RFID-based applications and
grating basic movement-sensing with tags and how why solutions (such as scrambled IDs) are only the
they might be used to infer human activity, specifi- first of a series of measures to ensure consumer par-
cally, which objects people manipulate. ticipation in RFID-based retail deployments. The
Ramesh Raskar et al. take this concept further by goal is to win consumer trust by giving them some
integrating light sensors into tags to add location- amount of control—possibly legally mandated—over
and geometric-reasoning to RFID tag/reader combi- the RFID infrastructure and its uses. Otherwise,
nations. Applications range from identifying ware- RFID vendors and RFID-enabled retailers risk losing
house contents, to shelving books in libraries, to them as customers.
assisting robotic assembly procedures, to detecting And, finally, Bruce Eckfeldt cautions RFID-
obstructions on remote railroad tracks. enabled retailers everywhere that they risk the same
fate if they fail to consider—in advance—how the
Pairing mobile devices is an annoying consumer might directly benefit or lose from their
task involving numerous configuration steps. If con- technology investment.
sumers would be willing to let their mobile devices This sampling of RFID technologies and their
communicate continuously and consume their bat- applications will help show what is possible and what
teries, then accomplishing it would be relatively is promised in consumer uses of passive RFID tags.
straightforward. Devices could discover each other Moreover, as tags get cheaper, smaller, and more
without having the user in the loop pressing buttons. capable, we can expect many as-yet unimagined ben-
Trevor Pering et al. address the problem of how eficial yet potentially invasive uses in areas as diverse
mobile devices might seamlessly discover and inte- as health care and entertainment. As RFID technolo-
grate with other devices in the environment (such as gists, application developers, and consumers, we
displays and kiosks), without expending their lim- must all be vigilant as to how these systems are
ited, precious power. designed not only for the sake of efficiency and cost
Abundantly clear to practically any RFID technol- but also to safeguard consumers’ privacy and instill
ogy researcher or application developer is that the their trust in the technology [1]. c
threat to the data privacy of millions of consumers
worldwide will be a major impediment to the tech- References
nology’s widespread adoption. No consumers would 1. Borriello, G., Cuff, D., Diorio, C., Schilit, B., Shafer, S., and Zipkin,
P. Radio Frequency Identification Technologies: A Workshop Summary.
want anyone else to be able to follow their every Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research
move by tracking the objects they carry or wear. Council, Washington, D.C., 2004.
2. Stockman, H. Communicating by means of reflected power. Proceedings
RFID-based applications could make tracking espe- of the Institute of Radio Engineers (Oct. 1948), 1196–1204.
cially easy because the tags embedded in increasing 3. Want, R. RFID: A key to automating everything. Scientific American
numbers of consumer products can be observed (Jan. 2004), 56–65.
without the consumer’s knowledge by a hidden
reader some distance away. Gaetano Borriello (gaetano@cs.washington.edu) is a professor
Sherry Hsi and Holly Fait focus on a particularly of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington,
interesting application involving the Exploratorium Seattle.
in San Francisco, a science museum using RFID tags
to help visitors interact with exhibits within the
museum, allowing them to register and document
their interests, then extend the visit after they’ve gone
home. However, as appealing as such extended scien- © 2005 ACM 0001-0782/05/0900 $5.00

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM September 2005/Vol. 48, No. 9 37

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