Radio-frequency identification chips (often called RFID tags) are passive, inductively powered chips that are applied to some applications, from substituting bar codes on supermarket products to identifying lost dogs and cats. It is a tiny, battery-powered electronic device that can be carried around to warn its owner that a new RFID tag has been positioned in his or her locality or that his or her tags are presently being scanned. One of the initial RFID TAG development companies, Alien Technology leads the industry in creating high-quality compliant RFID tags, readers and printers for companies worldwide. Once the RFID tag is activated, the tag decodes the incoming query and produces an proper answer by utilizing the energy of the incoming radio wave to power the chip long enough to answer.

Numerous other companies are using RFID for a big kind of applications. Some of these applications include: supply chain management, machine-driven payment, physical access control, counterfeit prevention, airline baggage management, and smart homes and offices. The following are the more common forms of tags: Label: The tag is a flat, thin, flexible form. Ticket: A flat, thin, flexible tag on paper .Card: A flat, thin tag embedded in tough plastic for long life. Glass bead: A small tag in a cylindrical glass bead, used for applications such as animal tagging (e. Different frequencies have unique features that make them more useful for diverse applications.)

RFID TAGS add value and accuracy to many applications such as: Compliance labeling in retail distribution centers. High-speed processes in postal and parcel distribution. Manufacturing process control and confirmation, material tracking, Airline luggage identification and routing systems, and Single-pass multiple item identification. RFID technology can be used to raise productivity and tracking in discrete and process manufacturing. For RFID applications such as toll collection and vehicle and container tracking, the tags are used over and over for many years. The most usual applications are payment systems (Mobil Speedpass and toll collection systems, for example ), access control and asset tracking. Active and semi-passive rfid tags are useful for tracking high-value merchandise that need to be read over long ranges, such as railroad cars on a track, but they cost more than passive tags, which means they can't be used on low-cost goods.

However, the ease with which RFID tags can be tracked opens up the door to invading people's privacy. The immediate adoption of RFID technology has produced concerns with some groups involved with privacy such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union . Civil liberties groups are worried about RFID technology being utilized to invade people's privacy; RFID tags enable unethical individuals to snoop on people and surreptitiously accumulate information on them without their approval or even knowledge.

RFID tag technology, a replacement to bar code technology, identifies tagged items over wireless communication between an electronic reader and tags containing data on microprocessor chips. The major disadvantages of a passive rfid tag are: The tag can be read only at very short distances, typically a few feet at most. Passive RFID tags are more suited for storage surroundings where there is not a lot of interference, and relatively short distances (typically ranging anywhere from a few inches to a few yards).