Wired Magazine reports that the British government is preparing to test new high-tech license plates with embedded RF-ID, capable of transmitting unique vehicle identification numbers and other data to readers more than 300 feet away.
Officials in the United States say they’ll be closely watching the British trial as they contemplate initiating their own tests of the plates, which incorporate radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags to make vehicles electronically trackable.
U.K. manufacturer Hills Numberplates makes the metal e-Plate. An e-Plate reader can be mounted on any light pole. CCTV cameras that capture number plates will be supplemented by readers that scan RFID license plates, such as the e-Plate, during the British test.
“We definitely have an interest in testing an RFID-tagged license plate,” said Jerry Dike, chairman of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and director of the Vehicle Titles and Registration Division of the Texas Department of Transportation. So-called “active” RFID tags, like the one in the e-Plate made by the U.K. firm Hills Numberplates, have built-in batteries, allowing them to broadcast data much farther than the small passive tags used to track inventory at retail stores.
Active RFID is already enjoying limited use on U.S. roadways. Under a new program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is issuing RFID tags to foreign freight and passenger vehicles as they enter the country.
The technology is also used in electronic toll-collection systems in the United States to automatically charge participating drivers as they breeze past unstaffed toll booths. In the San Francisco Bay Area, FasTrak toll transponders are also polled at readers away from the toll booths, to determine how quickly traffic is moving through particular areas.
Proponents argue that making such RFID tags mandatory and ubiquitous is a logical move to counter the threat of terrorists.
Privacy advocates are less enthusiastic about the technology.
“It’s too easy for (RFID license plates) to become a back-door surveillance tool,” said Jim Harper, director of information studies at libertarian think tank the Cato Institute and a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee.
Civil libertarians don’t object to an RFID automatic toll-collection system that “anonymizes” vehicles in databases once a transaction is completed. But they doubt the government — given its thirst for intelligence — will use such privacy-protection measures. From a law-enforcement perspective, “there is no reason to have privacy for anything,” said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The U.K. Department for Transport gave the official go-ahead for the microchipped number plates (as they are called in the United Kingdom) last week, and the trial is expected to begin later this year. The government has been tight-lipped about the details. One of the vendors bidding to participate in the trial said it would start with smartplates added to some police cars.
The point of the test is to see whether microchips will make number plates harder to tamper with and clone, said U.K. Department for Transport spokesman Ian Weller-Skitt. Many commuters use counterfeit plates to avoid the London congestion charge, a fee imposed on passenger vehicles entering central London during busy hours.
RF-ID is also being used in Smart License Plates by Accenture in the United States. WiFi RF-ID may also be enabled by “city clouds”.
PanGo Locator is an active RFID system that includes true Wi-Fi asset tags and all the software necessary to easily track assets over a wireless LAN.
Cisco’s Wireless Location Appliance 2700 (right), is a 1U box that integrates RFID tagging with 802.11 access points, enabling ways for central managers to locate and control assets. Cisco announced the general availability of its 2700 Series Location Appliance ($15,000) product today which makes location a feature of the network and provides the means for third party applications to access the location of devices connected to the wireless LAN.
The new 2.0 release of the PanGo active RFID Locator transforms location coordinates, adds a number of services and is said to provide a complete application solution.
WiFi RF-ID like Apriso and Aeroscout might be just the ticket for tracking grocery carts (or you). Its embedded telemetry can store and forward multiple channels of data.
RF-ID and streaming video were provided via WiMAX at the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. Wi-Fi based positioning systems, like PlaceLab work best where GPS fails – indoors.
Today, RFID tags are seemingly everywhere, says Secure ID News; in toll passes, card-keys, automobile keys, payment systems (like Speedpass systems), and animal identification.
What has changed is the emergence of the Electronic Product Code (EPC) system, which is a suite of standards and technologies that weaves basic RFID into a standardized scheme for keeping track of material in the supply chain.
The EPC was created at MIT by a few researchers involved in a research project called the Distributed Intelligent Systems Center (DISC). Later, this research effort morphed to fulfill a growing need in the retail supply chain and became the Auto-ID Center.
By January 2002, the Auto-ID Center was outgrowing the confines of universities. MIT licensed its technology free to EPCglobal, a joint venture of the UCC (Uniform Code Council) and its sister organization, EAN. Later, UCC and EAN merged to form GS1.
The EPCglobal UHF Generation 2 protocol, a consensus standard built by more than 60 of the world s leading technology companies, will be used as a base platform upon which standards-based products and future improvements will be built.
United Airlines pilots and crew are testing new RF-ID passports equipped with remotely readable chips. A California school required students to wear an ID tag embedded with an RFID chip to track their movements and monitor attendance but neglected to tell students or parents that the badges contained a tracking device. The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, stipulates biometric passport requirements for the 27 visa-waiver countries whose citizens don’t need visas to enter the United States if they come for 90 days or less.
Tommy Thompson, the former Health and Human Services Secretary and a former Governor of Wisconsin, is going to get tagged. Thompson has joined the board of Applied Digital, which owns VeriChip, the company that specializes in subcutaneous RFID tags for humans and pets.
So how long before someone hacks up a way to track him via Google maps, asks Engadet.
RF-ID Journal and RF-ID Gazette have the latest.
DailyWireless has more on Seattle’s RF-ID People Tracking System, UWB RF-ID, Real ID, Real-ID Passport, $10B Contract for People Tracking, Visa Tracking, Container Tracking, Port Security with RF-ID, RF-ID Tracking Pills, Mad Cow RF-ID, Handheld RF-ID Readers, Airport RF-ID, Tracking RF-ID, Digital Angel, RF-ID: From Soup to Nuts, Tracking Ship Movements – And You, Homeland Insecurity, Marathon RF-ID Tagging Port Security with RF-ID, Intelligent Transportation, RF-ID Tracking from Space?, Handheld Facial Recognition, Minority Report, The Matrix, the Matrix Expands and Matrix Shrinks.
C/Net editor Charles Cooper recalls the McCarthy Era from 1948 to about 1956. Here’s Edward R. Murrow (ram) on the junior Senator from Wisconson.
Good night and good luck.
