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RFIDs versus Contactless Smart Cards

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

The debate between RFIDs and smart cards would perhaps have not been there, had the former not introduced a 'contactless' interface, and that too a RF (radio frequency) one. Till date, both technologies have enjoyed their own application areas. RFID is touted as a technology used for distribution and inventory control, which is basically for assets tracking. It's also used for some payment systems such as toll

collection on highways. The technology finds use in the supply chain, retailing, and manufacturing segments. Smart cards, on the other hand, are largely used for commercial applications such as banking, payments, access control, identification, etc. The entire focus of smart cards has been on security. They're supposed to be tamper-proof, they support data encryption, and also support mutual authentication. RFIDs, on the other hand, haven't really focused on security to this extent. So what would

happen if RFID technology also paid more attention to security? Chances of application overlap are there, which means

competition. Let's understand these technologies in a little more detail to understand this aspect. 

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Let's start with RFID tags first. This technology uses a small chip with an

antenna packed in an enclosure. The chip stores data, while the antenna, of course, is used to receive signals from a reader and send data stored on the chip. There are two kinds of RFID tags, active and passive. The passive tags have a unique identification number, and its contents can never be changed. Active tags, on the other hand, can store more information, which can also be read, written, erased and modified by an external read/write device. There are some limitations of this technology also. The RFID readers can't penetrate liquids or metals. Plus, they're susceptible to interference from nearby barcode scanners, cordless phones, walkie-talkies, Wi-Fi networks, etc. Moreover, the RF wave from a reader triggers all the tags in the vicinity. Therefore, the reader has to contend with this, and a special algorithm running on an attached computer has to be able to sort out the data coming from multiple tags. Due to this nature of RFID tags, problems can arise if competing tags are in the same vicinity. For example, if a cartons from two different courier companies are placed side by side, then the reader will find the tags for both. Another wider concern being raised is that of privacy. So if you the clothes you bought had RFID tags on them, then while walking on the road, somebody with a reader could figure out what you're carrying. Clothes is one example, but it could just as well be anything else, be it your id card, books, important office folders, etc. So anybody could figure out who you are, what your preferences are, what you like to buy, where you like to travel, etc. While this is theoretically true, practically it's not. That's because the reader will have to be able to identify the product code on the RFID, it has to be compatible with it, and support the range. RFIDs in the US support different ranges starting from 2 feet and going up to 20-30 feet. 

Coming to contactless smart cards, they also comprise of one or more ICs and an antenna, packed in a credit card sized packaging. It also requires a reader to read/write data to the chip inside. Unlike RFID tags, there's no concept of active or passive here. The chip can be used for reading, writing and even processing of data. The smart card memory also holds a microcontroller chip OS, communications software, and encryption algorithms. Smart cards use three different types of chips, namely memory only for only storage and retrieval of data. The second type are called wired logic chips, which provide encryption and authentication access to the memory, and the third type are secure microcontroller chips. These contain a

microcontroller, an OS and read/write memory. Therefore, it can store data, execute logic and calculations as defined by the OS. This is the latest of the lot and the actual smart card, given the amount of calculations it can do. Contactless smart cards need to be within 10 centimeters of the reader for data exchange to take place. Therefore, the privacy issues of RFID tags aren't there in this case. 



Recently, RSA has been working on providing better security on RFID tags. This will ensure that only the reader that's meant for certain RFID tags can read the data from them, while the others can't. This will prevent other readers from reading data off the tags. Nevertheless it's still largely targeted at resolving the security problems related to inventory control. It's not getting into the security applications of smart cards. However, given that both technologies are using tiny chips packed in small form factors with wireless antennas, RFIDs could add more security features and start competing with smart cards. 

However, this possibility is unlikely for a long time, because the market potential for both even in the current market

segments they cater to are huge.

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