SPECTRUM NEEDS, PRIVACY ISSUES DEBATED FOR RFID TECHNOLOGIES

Wireless technology developers and users told a Commerce Dept. forum Thurs. on wireless sensor technologies such as radio frequency ID (RFID) that globalized spectrum allocations are needed for some RFID applications. While panelists stressed that the market has grown in recent years for RFID, they ticked off remaining challenges, including working on standards and assuring customers about privacy protection.

The technology is now used for applications that range from EZ Pass systems for highway tolls to wireless sensors that monitor vibrations on a factory floor to pinpoint machines that might need to be replaced, said NTIA Acting Dir. Michael Gallagher.

Concerns have been raised about the extent to which RFID technology could be used to track users, possibly through an unauthorized reader extracting data, said Eliot Maxwell of the Center for the Study of American Govt. at Johns Hopkins U. There are technology solutions that have been reached for protecting personally identifying information that might be used to indirectly connect a user with data from an RFID tag, he said. The harder challenge is how to protect such information at a point of sale, he said. Maxwell and other panelists said a balance has to be struck between killing data that could link an individual to information that he may want to protect vs. having useful information available for returns or product warranties.

Several developers said the RFID protocol is written to include a “kill” mechanism so consumers can choose to disable an RFID tag after they bring a product home. But Maxwell cautioned that this measure isn’t a panacea: “It’s not as if I think that the ‘kill’ mechanism answers all the questions because it eliminates lots of benefits that society can gain from this technology.”

But one concern that gets raised about RFID tags, and not credit card sales, is the “very hidden nature of the technology and the fact that the tags themselves are hidden and the readers are hidden,” said Paula Bruening, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology. Another issue concerns data aggregation and the ability to compile a “new kind of data that we haven’t dealt with before,” she said. Consumers also continue to have concerns about profiling, and RFID tags present an opportunity for richer kinds of profiling, she said. These issues of notice and customer choice have been addressed with other wireless technologies, but she said they are “different in scope” with RFID.

An uptake in RFID adoption will require more flexibility in the power levels for such systems, and possibly “virgin spectrum” to allow for innovative uses, said Matrics CEO Piyush Sodha: “We need clean healthy spectrum for the adoption of this technology.” But Ember Chief Technology Officer Robert Poor cautioned that as wireless systems, including new sensor technologies, become more densely deployed, “cranking up the power is not generally what you want to do.”

The half-day forum at the Commerce Dept. focused on policy issues and the expanding market for wireless sensor technologies. Panelists repeatedly cited Wal-Mart’s early strategy to use RFID technology in its supply chain as helping to drive recent growth in the sector. “If not for Wal-Mart, I'm not sure we'd all be sitting here,” said Lyle Ginsburg, managing partner of Accenture’s products operating group. Other retailers were cited as well, including Italian designer Prada’s flagship U.S. store in N.Y. “If you go to the flagship store in SoHo, RFID is dripping off everything,” Ginsburg said. Prada uses RFID tags, in part, to help determine if similar items that interest a customer are in stock, he said.

Panelists stressed the global nature of supply chains linking manufacturers and retailers creates a need for harmonized spectrum. “One of the bands that’s used here in the United States [for RFID] happens to interfere with military spectrum in some of the countries of Europe,” said Jon Brendsel, VeriSign dir.-Electronic Product Code (EPC) network services: “If you want tags that are going to operate worldwide and have them be low cost, it’s hard to do that when you have to build tags that operate in multiple spectrum.” Better coordination of such global allocation issues will help to drive the price of RFID components down, he said.

“If you ask me what the government really has to address, it’s spectrum, spectrum, spectrum,” Poor said. “The supply chain is a global phenomenon. If RFID is going to work to help the supply chain, the RFID systems have to work globally. Unless we can figure out how to harmonize our use of spectrum with other countries we want to do business with, we will be limiting ourselves unnecessarily.” Several wireless experts cited some spectrum in the UHF bands as ideal for this technology. Sodha said: “900 MHz to 2.4 GHz is the sweet spot for this technology.” Ralph Kling, a principal researcher at Intel, said an advantage of 5 GHz for RFID is that smaller devices could be built for this spectrum, which might be attractive for some applications.

There is currently “plenty of spectrum” for RFID systems based on how they have been used to date, said Badri Younes, Defense Dept. dir.-spectrum management. A major step that needs to be taken next is an assessment of how much spectrum is needed for RFIDs in general, he said. “We need to have a good understanding of the overall requirements.” For low power devices that operate under FCC Part 15 rules, there’s clearly adequate spectrum, Younes said. “It’s the higher power bands that we need to worry about,” he said: “The allocation of spectrum is really going to be a crucial issue. But first of all, we really need to look at the requirements.” He said DoD recently released a policy on tracking all tangible items: “Our policy now is to use active sensing all throughout the Department.”

DoD has used RFID to track all containers and large assets through its global supply chain, said Savi Technologies CTO Ravi Rajapakse. He said the recent DoD policy expanded active sensing to all components of the armed services and directed that it be expanded to passive tracking capabilities, as well, at the beginning of next year, Rajapakse said. This expansion of the wireless sensor policy enables tracking down the level of items, rather than just containers, he said.

On the privacy issues associated with RFID tags, Paul Moskowitz, a researcher with IBM’s Watson Research Center, said “consumers will give up the potential for some privacy invasion if the ease of use and convenience are clearly presented.”

A “first cut” has been taken at an EPC Global standard, said Sandra Hughes, chief privacy officer for Procter & Gamble. “These guidelines recognize this is very early in the technology cycle,” she said. “As the technology continues to develop and there’s more solutions, we'll be able to offer more choices for consumers to ensure their privacy.” The organization is looking not just at technology but at public policy for informing consumers about how the tag is used, including a privacy notice, she said. “All of us are working together to make sure that notice and choice are a given.” The draft guidelines contain as a “starting position” a provision that the RFID tag should be able to be discarded or disabled by the consumer “so that they know they have that choice,” she said. The items will contain a notice that the tag is present and can be removed, Hughes said. But she noted that the technology to deactivate tags is not “100% reliable.” She said this means there is a need for other customer solutions. But CDT’s Bruening noted that providing notice may prove tricky with this new technology. “It sounds a lot easier than it actually is to do in practice,” she said: “This is going to require more than notice and choice; it’s also going to require accountability.”