RFID Journal Live 2006, Las Vegas
I greatly enjoyed this year's RFIDJournalLive conference in Las Vegas. While the Conference was appropriately focused on the technology nuts and bolts of putting RFID to work in your business, the intersection of technology and public policy seemed to repeatedly creep into a growing number of conversations.
The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) hosted a press conference and a panel discussion on their "Privacy Best Practices" report, which was the result of a year's conversations and negotiations among a variety of RFID industry players. Among the corporate participants in their report, and the press conference, were Shane Tews (VP of Government Relations) of Verisign and representatives from Microsoft and IBM. Check out the report here: http://www.cdt.org/headlines/884
Alan Estevez, Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Supply Chain integration, was both as a keynote speaker a panelist on a breakout session specific to the DoD's RFID plans. He made a few noteworthy comments about the DoD's perspective on RFID:
1) The DoD is committed to RFID as a tool in managing their billions of dollars of supplies around the world.
2) DoD is moving forward with plans later this year to expand the number of bases where products shipped will require RFID labels as part of the next round of contracts, and the range of covered products to those bases will expand to include for example high-value medical equipment like X-Ray machines and EKGs.
3) He does not consider the RFID requirements in certain DoD contracts a "DoD mandate" as it is commonly referred to. Rather, he argues that requiring an RFID lable on shipments covered by certain contracts to be simply another "best business practice" for their suppliers -- like requiring that shipped products not be broken when they arrive.
Alan Estevez also co-chairs an Interagency Working Group within the Federal government, whose intent is to try to coordinate RFID procurement processes among the various departments and agencies currently contemplating RFID programs for a variety of purposes.
Public policy questions were also pervasive in conversations about RFID in the Health Care industry. A few panel discussions focused on state-led activities (like Florida) that are requiring drug companies to be able to provide chain-of-custody data to help deal with counterfeit or unsafe drugs from being part of the pipeline. California has plans to require the same kind of data, which RFID is capable of collecting.
What was less well known among the group, which I tried to help bring to the table, was the role that RFID may play in preparing for an Avian flu pandemic. The Federal government is buying Billions of Dollars worth of drugs, vaccines and medical devices for strategic stockpiles in the event of a pandemic event. The ability to track and trace the location of those drugs and vaccines, particularly in a panic-driven environment, will be crucial if they are to get to the right patients on time to be effective. This, more than any federal mandates from the FDA or states focused on counterfeiting, may be an accelerator in the use of RFID within the health care industry.
While data privacy and security continue to be the most talked about "public policy" topics affecting RFID, especially since so many state legislators have been reacting to horror stories about RFID use, the range of issues discussed at the RFIDJournalLive conference demonstrates that RFID policy is about more than just privacy and security. As this industry continues to grow in visibility, there will be lots of questions of standards, interoperability, spectrum allocation, federal and state procurement, etc that will need to be addressed for continued success among both RFID providers and end-users.
