The use of secure RFID to support the resolution of emergency crises

Abstract

The resolution of emergency crises and natural disasters is heavily dependent, among other things, on efficient supply chain management to bring the necessary material to the first time responders. The supply chain used in the resolution of emergency crises must have capabilities of agility and flexibility to respond to the challenges, which are typical of these scenarios. Emergency crises are often characterized by a chaotic environment and by a general lack of infrastructures, which are usually degraded or destroyed as a consequence of the source of crisis. Such conditions make the task to maintain the supply chain and provide the delivery of correct equipment and goods to the right places and at the right time more difficult. RFID has been increasingly considered, in the context of emergency crisis scenarios, to address the described challenges and to improve the supply chain. An important requirement is security. RFID devices must not be tampered with and they should be resistant to security attacks (e.g. spoofing, eavesdropping, cloning) to ensure that the supply chain is not disrupted by criminals and that cargo and goods are not stolen. In this context, this paper will present the application and benefits of the recent technological breakthroughs developed by Siemens and Infineon Technologies in the field of secure RFID. This paper will analyze practical utilization of this type of device in the resolution of emergency crises to guarantee the reliability of sealing of the goods and their identification. The establishment of a logistics tracking framework based on secure RFID has the potential to greatly increase the effectiveness of future emergency crises response operations.