Building Radio frequency IDentification for the Global Environment

The WP4 “Security” work package of BRIDGE is examining ways to ensure that RFID tags, readers, network infrastructure, and RFID services are developed in harmony with security features to enable effective and safe deployment of applications in various business sectors. However, some organizations tend to see security as nothing more than an extra feature or a “nice to have” for RFID deployments. To these stakeholders, the real economic value of security is often obscure. We provide a sound discussion, based on case studies, to outline that secure RFID solutions are more than just an add-on and are in fact an essential prerequisite to many, especially open-loop deployments. As the most radical RFID applications are only successfully if supply chain partners are willing to participate and share information that was previously considered proprietary, security features are needed as a necessary insurance mechanism. But security technologies offer even more: we provide case studies that show that secure RFID solutions allow for the deployment of completely new business applications. Without proper security features in place, these applications would be impossible to launch. The case studies show that there are potentially huge business benefits that cannot be leveraged today because of a lack of adequate security. Secure RFID solutions do not just fix problems induced by RFID technology itself, but also enable new applications and the deployment of RFID in open-loop environments. They lower entry adoption barriers, mitigate risks and enable new innovative processes. Work Package 4 positions itself to pursue developments that push these kind of secure RFID solutions forward. BRIDGE – Building Radio frequency IDentification solutions for the Global Environment Relation to other deliverables This deliverable is the third and final deliverable of task 4.1 of Work Package 4 (WP4) “Security”. The already completed deliverables D-4.1.1 and D-4.1.2 have discussed security threats and requirements for retailers, suppliers, consumers and other stakeholders. We have analyzed the current state of the art technology and discussed the security challenges that we need to overcome in order to enable the deployment of value-adding interorganizational RFID applications. In particular, we have studied the risks and threats for RFID enabled supply chains, including the analysis of risks and threats for SMEs. The role of task 4.1 is to provide an information basis and joint perspective for the other tasks in WP-4 that focus on the research and development of the technical solutions. In this manner, the associated deliverables D-4.2.1, D-4.3.1, D-4.4.1, D-4.5.1 and D-4.6.1 are concerned with researching and developing tag, reader and network infrastructure security (cf. Figure 1). Therefore, this report will focus on discussing the benefit side of a complete secure RFID solution. We provide a joint perspective of work package WP4 to outline the economic relevance of security and will refer to the other deliverables for further technical details. Figure 1. WP4 deliverables till M18 and their relationship to each other BRIDGE – Building Radio frequency IDentification solutions for the Global Environment