radio frequency identification

Electronic tagging system used for tracking the movement of goods between manufacturers and their customers. Each RFID tag contains a microchip smaller than a grain of sand, on which can be written an electronic product code (EPC). The tag can be read when a radio wave is passed over it by a reader device, which can be linked via the Internet to a database containing information about the product. Tagging can be at the level of pallets and cases or at the level of each individual item. RFID is widely used in passports, travel tickets, library books, cattle tags, and in many other items.

A number of large manufacturers, supermarkets, and department stores have run RFID tagging trials, the success of which indicated that RFID technology would become the industry standard for tracking and distribution. Hospitals, government departments, and even nightclubs have experimented with RFID chips implanted in human bodies to track people's movements.

The major US retailer Wal-Mart announced in November 2003 that it was already using RFID technology to track pallets and cases from two suppliers into one distribution centre, and that it expected soon to be tracking all pallets and cases from all its US and international suppliers. Tagging at item level proved a controversial issue and was flagged up by the US privacy advocates Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN); the group's concern was that many stores were not acknowledging their RFID trials, far less consulting with their customers about them.

The US Department of Defense carried out a pilot in February 2004 to simulate the tracking of combat rations ‘from vendor to foxhole’.