RFID News Roundup

The following are news announcements made during the past week by the following organizations: NIST; Ekahau; University of Memphis, Checkpoint Systems; Atlas RFID; MEPS Real-Time; Fujitsu Laboratories; GuestDriven, and Estimote.

NIST Study Makes the Case for RFID Forensic Evidence Management

A newly published report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) makes the case that using radio frequency identification systems can be an effective means of tracking and managing forensic evidence—and, if well implemented, can pay back initial setup costs within approximately two years.

The NIST report explores whether RFID technology can produce measurable benefits and a positive return on the funds invested in a new system. Various factors can affect the payback. For example, solutions that track and manage larger inventories of evidence (100,000 items or more) will recoup costs more quickly than those handling smaller inventories. However, if multiple jurisdictions share a system's costs, the payback period can be shorter.

The report includes an overview of automated identification technology (AIT)—focusing primarily on RFID and bar-code technologies—and how they work. It describes the types of RFID systems available (passive, active and battery-assisted), their price ranges, and the components necessary for a complete system. The report also details the barriers that agencies may encounter, and provides a series of successful RFID management case studies, including examples from the pharmaceutical and retail industries, as well as one law-enforcement agency that has made the switch: the Netherlands Forensics Institute.

The report is the result of a NIST-funded study on AIT. The Technical Working Group on Biological Evidence Preservation, cosponsored by NIST and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), commissioned the study and report, which can be downloaded for free at www.nist.gov/manuscript-publication-search.cfm?pub_id=916133.