Can RFID Track Hikers?

Published: August 7, 2009

Is it possible to use radio frequency identification technology to monitor the locations of individual hikers in the backcountry?

—Name withheld

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RFID is a short-range technology. Even active tags, which have a battery source enabling you to broadcast a signal, have a read range of less than 1,000 feet. Unless interrogators start growing on trees, GPS would be a better option for use with hiking.

—Mark Roberti, Editor, RFID Journal