Industries> Homeland Security

In addition to providing a wide range of domestic protection and disaster recovery functions, one of Homeland Security’s largest assignments is the protection of the American borders. The department is turning more and more to technology to accomplish this assignment and RFID is leading the charge in several critical applications.

Our seaports are a vibrant part of our economic lifeblood with over 16 million units arriving in our ports annually. Through its Container Security Initiative, the department is turning to active RFID technology to provide both visibility and security to the goods within these containers. Several projects are underway to develop active RFID solutions that will monitor the containers well before they enter U.S. borders and reports on any exception situations. Currently, the active or battery-powered RFID tags being used for sea container pilots have little or no security leaving them vulnerable.

Another Homeland Security initiative is the development of electronic passports to enhance border security. These new passports have an embedded RFID tag that contains both personal information and biometric data. Recently a Dutch security firm intercepted, stored, and cracked the password encrypted on an RFID-tagged passport. This allowed the attacker to gain both identification data along with finger print and photo data.

SecureRF technology is being developed to provide authentication and data protection to address both the sea container (active RFID tag) and electronic passport (passive RFID tag) applications.