WHEN rumours surfaced last year that the European Central Bank was quietly planning to put RFID (radio frequency identification) tags in euro banknotes to combat fraud and money laundering, privacy groups balked at the possibility that anybody with an RFID reader could count the money in wallets of passers by.
While the rumours have not been confirmed 鈥� or denied 鈥� a new generation of casino chips with built-in RFID tags is giving an insight into the way banks and shops could keep track of real money if it were tagged. The chips will be launched later this year and will allow casino operators to spot counterfeits and thefts, and also to monitor the behaviour of gamblers.
RFID tags are tiny silicon chips that broadcast a unique identification code when prompted by a reader device. The tags do not need batteries, since they simply modify the radio signal fired at them by the reader. The readers work over distances ranging from a few centimetres to a few dozen metres, depending on the type of tag.
Advertisement
Counterfeit chips have long been a problem for casinos, and houses routinely mark their chips with inks visible only in infrared or ultraviolet light. Embedded RFID tags should make the chips much harder to counterfeit, and placing tag readers at staff exits could cut down on theft by employees. The tags could also help casinos manage large-scale theft. If a large stash of chips goes missing 鈥� after a table is overturned during an argument, for example 鈥� casinos sometimes have to change their entire stock. This is unpopular with gamblers, since any chips that they haven鈥檛 cashed become worthless. RFID tags would allow the casinos to identify stolen chips without the expensive process of restocking.
Aside from improving security, the tags could also be used to track how people play in a casino, says John Kendall, president of Chipco International in Raymond, Maine, which is making and selling tagged casino chips. The tagged chips would allow casino operators to keep tabs on the fortunes of every gambler on their premises, recording the stakes placed by each player along with their winnings and losses.
American casino operators routinely monitor gamblers with security cameras, just as retailers monitor stores for shoplifters. The casinos want to check that big winners are not cheating the house, and to identify lucrative 鈥渉igh rollers鈥� and encourage them to keep playing by treating them to free meals, show tickets, or hotel rooms. But this monitoring has to be done by human observers and is haphazard and unreliable. Chip tracking could dramatically improve the process.
Tagging banknotes would require a much smaller and thinner tag than those used in casino chips. The leading candidate is the 鈥淢u鈥� chip launched last year by Hitachi, which is just 0.4 millimetres square and 0.1 millimetre thick. The tag can only be read from a few millimetres away, which would allow banks and stores to check the validity of notes without letting snoops spy on the contents of your wallet.
Details of a joint project between Hitachi and the European Central Bank to put RFID tags in euro notes were reported last year, but the ECB refuses to comment on the security features of the euro.
Putting the tags in notes would be difficult because of the wear and tear currency has to withstand, says Mark Roberti, editor of the RFID Journal, an online newsletter about the RFID industry. 鈥淓mbedding a hard silicon device with a flexible antenna in money is a challenge,鈥� he says. And Roberti expects privacy advocates to object strongly to anything that would let people track an individual鈥檚 spending. 鈥淚 do not expect to see US dollars with RFID tags in my lifetime,鈥� he says. Europeans may not have so long to wait.
CHIPS with everything
The use of RFID tags is set to grow dramatically. Although the idea behind the tags has been around since the second world war, the devices themselves were big bulky and expensive. In the last few years, however, improved manufacturing techniques have shrunk the tags, while economies of scale have cut prices to only a few cents. Last year, the US Department of Defense began a $275 million programme to track military shipments using RFID tags, and the US retailing giant Walmart announced plans to tag pallets in its warehouses by 2005. Many other retailers and manufacturers have also begun to test the technology to keep track of stock.
