The rapid growth of RFID use in various supply chain operations, which has arisen from the development of Electronic Product Code (EPC) technology, has created a need for the consideration of security issues in the adoption of that technology.

As the originators of EPC technology, the Auto-ID Center laboratories, established at MIT in 1999, and extended in subsequent years to become an association of seven laboratories around the world, have taken a keen interest in the workings of EPC in practical applications. The laboratories, now called the Auto-ID Laboratories, have adopted all questions surrounding security of these applications as a principal research interest. Their research has been primarily concerned with the ability of RFID to combat the widespread counterfeiting that has emerged in many supply chains and that is not adequately suppressed by non-RFID security technologies. This book is the outcome of that research. The Auto-ID Laboratories network, whose members have provided the chapters of this book, consist of laboratories at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA, Cambridge University in the UK, The University of Adelaide in Australia, Keio University in Japan, Fudan University in China, The University of St. Gallen and The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland, and The Information and Communications University in Korea. Together, they have been and continue to be engaged in assembling the building blocks needed to create an “Internet of things”. This global infrastructure leverages the global connectivity of the Internet and makes it possible for computers to identify any object worldwide. This Internet of things will not just provide the means to feed reliable, accurate, real-time information into existing business applications; it will usher in a new era of innovation and opportunity. More detail on the formation, functions and expertise of the Auto-ID Laboratories network, and its relation to world standards bodies, can be found in Chapter 1.