RFID Gussied Up With Biosensors
By Mark Baard
Still stinging from failed attempts to introduce radio tags to consumers,
retailers and their suppliers are now adding features to the technology
to make it appear essential to the safety of the nation's food supply.
As recently as last week, retailers and consumer packaged-goods companies
have had to quietly dump efforts to implant radio-frequency
identification technology into products or store shelves. The tiny radio
transmitters let the companies precisely track the numbers and
whereabouts of their inventory and consumers' purchasing preferences,
which worries many privacy advocates.
But many companies are now combining the tags with sensors that can
detect the presence of biological and chemical agents, or signal that a
perishable item has expired. By doing so, they hope to gussy up the
controversial technology as an essential terrorism-fighting tool.
The multifunction RFID tags will track America's food supply "from birth
to the bun," said one RFID tag maker. With biosensors attached to them,
the tags can instantly alert suppliers and retailers to anthrax or other
toxins in their products, and possibly make recalls more effective.
In addition, the food companies hope the technology will protect them
from lawsuits brought by victims of deliberately contaminated food.
"Antiterrorism designation from the Homeland Security Department will
encourage the adoption of this technology by our customers," said Paul
Cheek, CEO of Global Technology Resources, which has developed a
supply-chain-auditing system incorporating RFID biosensors.
If Homeland Security designates GTR's system, called Safe Check, as an
antiterrorism technology, it will shield Cheek and his customers from
lawsuits if the system fails to work as intended.
The Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies ("Safety")
Act of 2002 authorizes the Homeland Security Department to name as
"qualified antiterrorism technologies" any devices designed to thwart or
mitigate the effects of terrorism. Users of approved devices will enjoy
blanket protections from liability lawsuits arising from a terrorist
attack.
According to one technology industry lobbyist, the Safety Act was a
"backroom deal" brokered by defense contractors, tort reform lawyers and
congressional leaders.
But the Safety Act has recently caught the attention of the food
industry, which is now funding the development of RFID biosensors and
pushing for their coverage under the Safety Act.
Auburn University's Detection and Food Safety Center, which is partly
funded by food companies, is leading much of the research into RFID
biosensors. AU scientists are coating microscopic structures -- one a
cantilever less than 100 microns long -- with bacteriophages, viruses
that bind with anthrax and other biological and chemical agents. When an
agent binds with the phage coating, the cantilever produces a signal for
transmission to a handheld RFID receiver.
AU assistant professor Barton Prorok, who is working on the biosensors,
wants to combine the tiny sensor, a transducer and a computer chip on a
stamp-size RFID tag, which can operate submerged inside a milk bottle, or
in the juice at the bottom of a meat package.
AU is in the early stages of its research, and a bacteriophage-based RFID
biosensor is likely many years away.
But several food companies have already begun testing RFID biosensors.
Golden State Foods, one of McDonald's largest beef patty providers and
its leading sauce supplier, has been testing GTR's technology for 14
months. Golden State Foods did not respond to a request for an interview.
Another company later this year will begin tagging supply containers for
a retail grocery chain. FreshAlert, from RFID chipmaker Infratab,
combines RFID tags with temperature sensors and timers, to signal when
perishables have become unsafe to eat. Infratab is also negotiating with
a brewery and a sausage maker, which are interested in investing in its
technology.
The food companies, which say they want to use RFID to make their supply
chains more efficient, refused to discuss any food safety and security
applications for RFID biosensors.
They may be touchy about their industry's history of poor record keeping
and inept recalls. Less than 30 percent of recalled meats and poultry are
ever recovered, according to estimates from food safety experts and the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. "They don't want to remind people of that
(NBC News) Dateline episode, either," said the CEO of one RFID tag
manufacturing company. Dateline last year discovered that retail grocers
nationwide were endangering their customers' health by changing the
expiration dates on perishable items.
Infratab, GTR and other RFID biosensor companies will begin applying for
Homeland Security antiterrorism technology designation as early as next
month. But critics of the technology question whether the tags will ever
be an effective tool for recalling contaminated goods.
"The retailers used the same argument -- faster recalls -- as a
justification for customer loyalty cards," said Liz McIntyre, a
spokeswoman for the anti-RFID privacy group CASPIAN. "But we know of no
product recalls that have ever been made with customer loyalty cards."
To make recalls based on information from RFID biosensors, food retailers
will have to record the personal data of every shopper, said McIntyre,
something consumers may not welcome.
"Consumers will just have to ask themselves if it's worth it to sacrifice
their privacy for this technology, because it's something the industry
wants."
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