Protecting RFID security

Contactless RFID is well established for access control for buildings; simply wave a pass near the reader and the door opens. This technology is now being rolled out in Britain and around the world for so called ‘BioMetric passports’ and credit cards because there are no physical contacts or magnetic stripes to wear out.

However, it is generally not realised just how easy it is for unauthorised people to access the information on these devices without the owners even realising, warns Peratech, a designer of new materials for touch technology.

With chip and pin or magnetic stripe, the owner makes a conscious decision to authorise the reading of information by physically handing over the device. Contactless RFID uses a short-range wireless link from a reader to activate a chip that can then be interrogated to provide information stored on it.

The problem is that readers are easily available for purchase by anyone and some security codes that protect the information have already been hacked.

The company says it has a solution to this problem that puts the owner back in control of who accesses their information. A very thin, pressure-sensitive material which acts as a switch is embedded in the circuit and then can be laminated in the same way as current credit cards are produced. Only when the switch is squeezed by the owner will the device become active.

The switch is only possible in such a thin application because it is made from quantum tunnelling composites (QTCs). At 70 microns thick, the switch is even thinner than the chip enabling it to be embedded into a credit card, passport or access pass. QTC technology has no moving parts, requires no air gap between contacts and is robust enough to survive many years of switching on and off.