RFID Protection Used Recently

While the blog below focused on the issues people have with RFID tagging and the safety concerns many people have, RFID is sometimes used to do the exact opposite, protect us.


On July 3 and 4th of this year, when Boston Pop’s Fourth of July concert took place along the Charles River, RFID tagging was used to insure the safety of over 500,000 audience members and 20 federal, state and local agencies. Every year this event is one of the biggest Independence Day celebrations in the United States. By embedding passive EPC Gen2 RFID tags in the staff members’ pendants and by installing two RFID portals, the command center, where they surveillance the event, was able to grant access to authorized personal quickly and efficiently.

RFID Global Solution provided the software needed to manage the data needed on each RFID tag. Students, studying to be RFID Technicians assisted with the installation, while a video company provided the technology to surveillance the event. Prior to this technology, personal body guards were needed all through out the event, increasing cost and people. The RFID secured command center provides a more efficient and broader view of the event. After the completion of the event it was tallied that there was 6,000 reads of pendants as personnel passed in and out of the command center. That verification of personnel before was done by an authorized person with a list of names, checking ID. One can imagine the traffic flow going in and out of the command center used to be much slower.


The command center at the Boston Pop's Fourth of July Concert in 2009. Twenty federal, state and local agencies manned the center.