RFID tags, pay per bag, and they STILL lose 'em

I was reading an article this morning on the new American Airlines luggage charge (THAT's gonna go over well), and noticed an aside starting on page 3...Las Vegas is using RFIDs in outgoing luggage tags now to help move bags more efficiently.

Now, I'm not saying I'm even completely against this, used correctly...but I had no idea that it was occuring. THAT I don't like...especially since I have a bag sitting in the hallway that just came back from Vegas! Checking...nope, no I'm an arphid note on it.

But oh yeah...it's there:

All hail the RFID baggage overlords

RFID in Vegas airport luggage tag

Nice, eh? And I carried this around (out of airport, past who knows what kind of scanner, on transit, etc.) without knowing about it. And of course, they're all already sync'd with a person's ID directly. Hrrrmmmm.

And as for slippery slope...from the article: This new system "won't solve every problem, but it's certainly played a part in allowing this airport to operate efficiently," she said, "and it's got the potential to do even more once it's rolled out [on] a wider basis."

I bet it does.

UPDATE: to clarify, I changed "...in outgoing luggage now..." to "...in outgoing luggage tags now..." above, after the post made it onto boingboing (woot!). It was a typo, and the photos make it clear what I'm talking about, but apparently people thought it worth mentioning. *grin* Sorry for any confusion.

posted by Ken Kennedy at May 22nd 2008 3:20 p.m.

Old comments (new comments via Disqus)
  1. Andrew commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    RE: Update - people are pedantic...

  2. Jellodyne commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    OK, so the RFID tag is just a unique ID, machine identifiable at range, that allows the airport to locate that tag at all times, and to know if that tag is or is not on the plane its supposed to go on. Does the airport's database know who's luggage is attached to, and do they have personal info, like your credit card number and whatnot in their database? Absolutely. Is the RFID tag 'synced' to that? No it doesn't contain any thing but its ID, like a unique barcode. Does it allow a third party to steal your infoz with a scanner? No.

    RFID can be bad, but in this case its an ideal use with little to no privacy implications. RFID = bad when you walk out of a store and a third party can scan your person and know what you bought. RFID = good when the airport won't let the throwers put your bag on the wrong plane.

  3. bp commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    Perhaps you missed the implication of this article: now, wherever you take your baggage, if someone scans it, they know, with some high probability, you've been there. *That* has privacy implications.

  4. db commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    Can you spell parranoya?

  5. Phht! commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    Yes, but you can't

  6. shame on you commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    this is a great move on behalf of the airports.
    Im sure its just a unique number and nothing more--something only the airline central databases know whom belongs too. It is just a much better way of tracking your luggage

  7. response to bp commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    you just remove the label--and it probably isnt that easy to tell what airport, etc--although forseeable that a database of such things could be set up

  8. Anonymous commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    I work on airport luggage handling systems. The RFID tags contain a ten digit number that uniquely identifies that bag for that day. When the tag is printed, a message is sent to the luggage handling system that allows the system to match the tag with the passenger's itinerary, and sort the bag to the appropriate location.

    The tag is not persistently unique - the ten digit number will typically be assigned to another passenger within a week to ten days.

  9. ya what now? commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    @ bp - hmmm this sounds dangerously like the international conspiracy that marks these very same "airline tags" with "optically readable" inch high codes like LVS LAX etc.

    on a more general note, the average passenger's privacy is totally non-existent these days, so anything that potential reduces handling by those every present security threats, humans, and gets my luggage back to me on time is a boon to me.

  10. Drahcir commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    The number being reassigned after a week just doesn't sound reasonable.

    One week suggests that the system was designed to handle 1,428,571,428 pieces per week.

    What is the scope of the system? The airline carrier? That would span multiple airports, with the possibility of ID number collisions between carriers at some airports. If the scope is an airport, then the tag only allows tracking at the originating airport.

    For this to be really effective, the scope has to be the entire commercial passenger air traffic system. Does that mean one organization acting as a go-between? Or an cooperative oligarchy sharing information (and perhaps encoding an ID unique to each oligarch in the 10 digit number - perhaps 2 or 3 digits of that number.)

    If it's a single organization, they're going to take short cuts on their security model and the model isn't going to be as well reviewed as it might be with more players. If it's an oligarchy, then there is going to be security flaws in the way information is shared in order to accommodate different stages of implementation.

    But all of that applies to any number, whether printed or boxed in an RFID tag. The RFID tag just makes it more likely that portable devices are going to have access to all the information necessary to pick people out of the crowd.

  11. Mike commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    What exactly is your gripe, Ken? The article clearly says:

    "The radio chip tracking system only works for the part of the system controlled by the airport -- basically the security scans."

    Are you paranoid that they are tracking wherever the bag goes after you leave the airport? It's actually a really smart and useful technology.

  12. Ken commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    > from Mike:
    > What exactly is your gripe, Ken?

    I tried to make it fairly clear up front, but I guess I didn't. The (biggest) gripe is that there is no indication that the RFID is there. Without prior knowledge or close inspection, I don't know that I'm carrying a identifier that can be read (albeit at close range) without line of sight or visible indication. And yeah, I do actually think about those sorts of things. It doesn't keep me awake at night or anything, but sometimes I'll...oh...blog about 'em. *grin*

    >The article clearly says:
    > "The radio chip tracking system only works for the part of
    > the system controlled by the airport -- basically the
    > security scans."

    Righhhtt. And it also says at the end (as I noted): "it's got the potential to do even more once it's rolled out [on] a wider basis."

    Feeping creaturism, dude. Feeping creaturism.

    I /like/ RFIDs. I think they're interesting, and useful, tech. And like anything, I think they can be abused. And it's far easier to abuse something that you didn't make clear that you were using. (yes, I realize it's not secret. But how hard is it to make a note on the tag?)

  13. JC commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    I think the point is the more ingrained this kind of technology gets the easier it will be to misuse. Does that mean don't use the tech? I don't know, but I do know if an infrastructure is built it will be misused eventually (wiretapping anyone?)

  14. Paul commented 2 months, 4 weeks ago

    Actually, it is quite hard to make a note on the tag. The cheapest tags have no room to make a note. As for nation wide use: The info is stored in the databases of the airlines and airports, not on the tag. The airport assigns a tag to a piece of luggage and notifies the other airports that it had assigned that number. Other airports can request info on that number. All within the boundaries of firewalls and other protections. The only info outside those boundaries is a number. To make matters slightly less complex, one can assign a range of numbers to a specific airport, so it may be possible to detect where a piece of luggage came from. Not very unlikely the visible tags with LAX on them.
    Here comes the joke. Frequent flyer John Smith likes to collect those tags for his son and comes back from a roundtrip with a bag full of tags. Hopefully, his luggage does not end in Rome.

  15. DT commented 2 months, 3 weeks ago

    The first thing I do with the luggage tag when I recover my bag from the luggage carousel is rip off the routing tag & throw it in the bin. Easiest solution to ease any further paranoia. RFID technology should make more sense than bar coded tags resulting in fewer lost and misrouted bags. If the idea was that I had to have a bag with my own unique, permanent, traveller's RFID tag then I'd be paranoid. But then that's what passports and frequent flyer programs are all about.

  16. Jim Strathmeyer commented 2 months, 3 weeks ago

    "Are you paranoid that they are tracking wherever the bag goes after you leave the airport? It's actually a really smart and useful technology."

    Let me guess, Mike, you were one of the people surprised to learn that hijackers could possibly pilot a plane into a skyscraper?

  17. KW commented 2 months, 3 weeks ago

    Hong Kong International Airport has used these for a couple of years. They are clear so you can see the circuit, making them obvious. I have kept mine as decorative stickers on my bookshelf.

  18. Ken commented 2 months, 3 weeks ago

    I'd be interested in seeing a photo of some of those, KW. I'll have to poke about Flickr and such. Or feel free to send me one (or a link)...I'll post a comparison. As I've said (more than once now *grin*) the lack of any indication that it was there was a lot of what I didn't like.

 
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