Ask the Expert

• By Mike Borths
• Feb 05, 2007

NEARLY 10 years ago, the security industry was inundated with stories of systems promising to track valuable assets, making objects much more difficult to steal. There was one major problem -- the systems did not work as promised. Most systems relied on a tag being applied to the asset. Tag readers were installed at exit doors, and any asset taken from the building would trip an alarm, notifying security that a potential theft was in progress.

However, the tags were expensive, bulky and easily removable. The readers had trouble covering the wide exits found in many buildings, and it was possible to interrupt the signal between tags and readers in a variety of ways.

Now with a few more years of planning and technology development, asset tracking is coming closer to wide deployment. The need for functioning solutions is growing.

ISSUE: What is the current state of asset tracking technology?

SOLUTION: According to recent statistics, one in 10 laptop computers are stolen in the United States each year at a cost of $720 million in hardware and $5.4 billion in lost proprietary information. FBI statistics indicate that 97 percent of stolen laptops are never recovered.

In addition to laptops, most corporate organizations and schools also have desktop computers, servers, PDAs, photocopiers, digital cameras, cell phones, audio/visual and other specialized equipment that can be easily and quickly stolen. Healthcare facilities also need to protect portable medical equipment.

RFID is becoming more effective. The cost of tags is decreasing as more retailers use the technology to help monitor products moving through the supply chain. The size of the tag also is shrinking, making it ideal for application to smaller and less-expensive office and lab items. Today's active tags that transmit a radio signal can cover wider exits and may be successfully hidden inside printers, computers and other items to make them less likely to be removed or defeated. And with readers placed throughout a facility, the tags can help to locate shared portable equipment.

ISSUE: What are some real-world applications of the technology?

SOLUTION: The pharmaceutical industry is counting on RFID chips to help it track products and cut down on the counterfeiting of drugs. Some experts estimate that as many as 35 million prescriptions a year are filled with counterfeit drugs in the United States. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are experimenting with item-level tagging of each drug bottle shipped. The batch number is entered into a small silicon RFID chip to make sure it matches the shipping documents.

Many school districts are now using GPS units to track their most precious asset -- students. By installing GPS units in school buses, district officials can pinpoint vehicle location, direction and speed in real time.

There is even one airport in Hungary that planned a test to track suspicious passengers. Once inside the airport, passengers are given a chip at check-in, and then cameras and sensors track a person?s movements. But as one critic of the idea pointed out, why not just pull suspicious passengers aside and address the concern rather than tag potential bad guys.

READER QUESTION: I own four convenience stores in a mid-sized city, and I currently have cameras monitoring front and back doors and the register at each location. Even so, I've had five robberies in the past six months. By the time police arrive and we run the video for the officers to review, the robbers are long gone. Would a network allow me to share video with the police department more quickly? I'm tired of my stores being seen as an easy mark.

SOLUTION: A video transmission system can be installed and set up to report to a central station monitoring company. This allows operators to remotely view your video cameras upon an alarm being activated. Video verification of alarms can improve police response time, since it has been verified that the alarm is not a false or nuisance alarm. The monitoring company also can assist in identification of intruders when reporting the alarm. There are a number of municipalities where verification of alarms is required before reporting them to the police.

There also are systems that incorporate features like remote control and intercom systems. These features can assist the central station operator to further identify and challenge an intruder to hopefully prevent any damages or losses before they happen.

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