July 21 2005

By Rhonda Wickham, Editor in Chief

In Charlotte, N.C., an abduction of a baby from Presbyterian Hospital was thwarted thanks to an RFID infant protection system. Last week, the Hugs system sounded the alarm when an infant was removed from the hospital's seventh-floor nursery. Nurses and staff responded to the "Code Pink" alert, and security officials recovered the infant unharmed and returned him to the maternity ward.

VeriChip Corporation, a subsidiary of Applied Digital, a provider of security and identification technology, supplies the "Hugs" Infant Protection System. Each infant wears a Hugs tag on his or her wrist or ankle that contains a tiny radio transmitter. Hospital exit points are electronically monitored to detect unauthorized removal of an infant.

Since 1983, there have been 233 infant abductions in the United States, half of which originated at healthcare facilities. VeriChip's RFID infant protection systems are designed to combat not only infant abductions, but also accidental infant mismatchings, which is a much bigger problem. According to the Journal of Healthcare Protection Management, mismatching incidents occur roughly 20,000 times a year. VeriChip's infant protection systems now are installed in approximately 900 U.S. hospitals.

For all of these types of feel-good elements of RFID, there remain instances that do not conjure the same reaction. For example, some supermarkets are using RFID and GPS to track the movements of their stock personnel. Last week one of the U.K.’s largest trade unions – GMB – cried foul. GMB called for a ban across Europe on grocery stores and other stores using RFID and GPS to track workplace staff.

The trade union sent a report to the European Union claiming that tagging and tracking technologies are an invasion of workers’ privacy. Further, the GMB called for legislation to restrict its use. The European Union is reviewing the report and expects to have a response in mid-September.

Maybe this last bit of RFID news isn’t exactly ugly, but it is odd. Tommy Thompson, former Wisconsin governor and former Health and Human Services Secretary during President Bush's first term, has joined the board of directors for Applied Digital, which owns VeriChip, a company that specializes in subcutaneous RFID tags for pets and humans. He recently indicated his intent to have an RFID tag implanted under his own skin.

Though global standardization efforts have brought RFID to the forefront for tracking boxes, crates and other packages, privacy concerns and people-tracking ultimately could give the sector a black eye.

© 2005, Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.