Wasting Time on the LTO RFID Non-Issue (or, ranting about the driving public being misled by supposedly-principled legislators)

(I didn't plan to write about this -- I intended to leave my ranting on Plurk -- but after an email from an engineering colleague from a past life asking me about this and pointing out the obvious errors being bandied about in the media, the same colleague urging me to write about it, here is this little rant. Enjoy at your own risk.))

So, there in the news is the little tempest in a teacup about the LTO's plan to install radio frequency identification (RFID) stickers on vehicles. The project is supposedly part of a 2003 build-operate-own (BOO) contract with Stradcom. Bayan Muna party-list representative Teddy Casiño and Gabriela party-list representative Liza Maza figure prominently in news talking about opposition to the plan.

Usually, I don't pay much attention to these people, but then it seems that they've used the RFID issue as another bogeyman. Not that I trust the current administration, mind you, but clearly these people are misleading the public. Their disingenuous statements do not reflect the truth about the technology.

In other words, ginagago na tayong mga taumbayan. It's bad enough that the Queen of the Enchanted Kingdom does that, but for the supposed principled opposition to do the same shows what little regard all these politicians have for the citizenry. Magsama-sama na ang mga manloloko; we are not all tech-illiterate.

So, Representatives Maza and Casiño, here's us doing your homework for you. It's one thing to be uninformed and saying so, but it's another thing entirely to be misleading us with misinformation based on deliberate stupidity.

***
Representative Maza said "This technology raises fears that it might be used to violate the right to privacy of individuals. The LTO’s microchips might, in turn, be used as ‘spychips’ for the government’s surveillance operations on those critical of the current administration... Apparently, the LTO will act like a 'Big Brother.' It can be used as a spying device, since radio waves from a microchip will identify all information about the vehicle in real-time basis."

Nakakahiya. Soundbites instead of fact. Shooting one's mouth off without doing one's homework.

So then, RFID 101.

Radio frequency identification is employed via fairly ubiquitous gadgets. You have them in stores attached to products, often with the intent of preventing shoplifting, some of them already replacing barcodes for price checks (after all, stuff like clothes won't do well to have bar code stickers stapled to them). You have them attached to vehicles that ply the expressway, as a means of automating toll payments -- these ones are usually the active RFID boxes, take note, and not the same technology as the passive RFID tags that the LTO tags will be. You have them tracking manufacturing parts boxes on the shop floor, as a means of efficiently segregating and shipping them to where their supposed to go.

How does do RFID systems -- specifically, passive RFID systems such as the LTO vehicle sticker -- work? Check out the basics; this article is also a must-read for more detail.

It's simple, really. Note the absence in the block diagram of listening devices, cameras, and suchlike.

There are several concepts that need to be made clear (and which Maza does not seem to understand; sabagay, one does not learn engineering concepts by chanting slogans on the street).

- The RFID vehicle tag to be deployed by the LTO is a passive device -- it has no integrated power source and thus cannot send out radio waves that provide information about the vehicle on a real-time basis. The RFID vehicle tag will only send information about the vehicle if queried by an RFID reader. To repeat, Representative Maza, your protest against "spychips sending out radio waves containing information in real time" does not hold water. How can a device transmit RF signals on its own without a power source?

(Oh, right, scientific and physical laws are subservient to political ideology.)

- The read-out range of a passive RFID system is dependent on the power output and sensitivity of the RFID reader; the cheap-ass LTO passive RFID tag and its component reader will typically have a range of less than 10 meters -- and that's pushing it (Lomibao's claim of 20 meters notwithstanding). As such, Representative Maza, to be able to track vehicles with "spychips", you will have to place RFID readers spaced every tenth or twentieth of a distance between manhole covers, not to mention networking all of these RFID readers to the purported central monitoring systems. It would be far cheaper to install GPS locator systems should you want to track vehicles and their movements.

(Oh, right, one doesn't learn cost-benefit analysis by chanting slogans on the street.)

- The passive RFID chips will be of EEPROM technology containing data about vehicles that are already being made available by vehicle owners when registering them with the LTO; even then, these EEPROM chips of passive RFID tags are limited in the amount of data that they can hold, typically several hundred bits of data -- no different from that of the SIM of your cellphone. Your "spychips" have no capability of telling the reader anything beyond the owner's name, the license plate number, chassis number, engine number, date of registration, and suchlike that you write on the LTO vehicle registration form; they are incapable of telling the RFID reader who are the people inside your vehicle, if they are critics of the government, if they are armed and dangerous, or whatever else you're trying to scare the public with.

(Oh, right, Big Brother is all-powerful, no matter the technical limitations of the technology.)

How, then, are these RFID tags useful?

The automation of vehicle registration, for one, as a means of discouraging fixers is by far a public good that outweighs the one-time cost of 350 pesos per RFID tag. By making registration processes faster, the vehicle-owning public will find the services of fixers superfluous; no need for the harried vehicle owner to employ a fixer to speed things up if the RFID tag will make registration quick and easy. Surely a step in fighting grassroots corruption is a good thing?

RFID tags can also be used to catch scofflaws; running a red light with a CCTV and an RFID reader can and will result in a vehicle being tagged and flagged for violations of the law and later resulting in the vehicle being disallowed from plying the streets. Surely crime control is a good thing?

RFID tags can be a means to identify vehicles used in crimes or are involved in them. Think of the possibilities -- carjackers will have difficulties in fencing their wares, kidnappers and holdup gangs can be tracked and traced once their vehicles have been tagged and flagged, and so on. Surely law enforcement is a good thing?

Now, then, Representative Maza, what of your charge that RFID tags might violate the right to privacy?

Two words: kalokohan.

(Yes, that's two words -- the other one is in RF code.)

First, the information on the tags are data that you ALREADY provide the LTO. Invasion of privacy, really.

Second, in no way can passive RFID vehicle tags tell authorities of what goes on inside your car. You can drive your car up to Antipolo and have a screaming boinkfest with your passengers and the RFID vehicle tag won't know the difference. Certainly an invasion of privacy if the tag cannot do what you say it can.

Third, unless and until the government installs RFID readers convering on every single road on the 205,497 km road network -- we're talking of 205,497,000 meters worth of road, and therefore 20,549,700 RFID readers networked to automated monitoring stations -- your Big Brother bogeyman of tracking vehicles blah-blah-blah is no more possible under government budget at present than your capability to repeal or amend physical or natural laws -- I dare you, amend the law of gravity, sige nga.

Susme. All we ask from elected legislators is to serve the public, not to fool us.

***
Now, what of Representative Casiño's claim that "the tagging appears to be overpriced at P350 when RFID chips are already inexpensive, costing 20 [US] cents on the average or around P10 to 15 only"?

Eh kung nag-aral ka sana tungkol sa RFID technology, Teddy. RFID tags do not work without their counterpart RFID readers. Likewise, the RFID tags being EEPROMs, you should have factored the cost of EEPROM writers used to put information on the RFID tags. You also should have factored into the project cost the need for the database software and other automation costs. There are also training and maintenance costs involved in the use of RFID tags, something else you are glossing over.

That was a disingenuous statement, Mister Casiño. Ang RFID tag ay hindi trapo na pagkabili ay agad na puwede nang gamiting pamunas.

Not that you would be able to distinguish a trapo from an RFID tag, it would seem, let alone a Bayan Muna bumper sticker from one.

***
In any case, it will be a treat to watch the slings and arrows between the LTO and these legislators. The entertainment value of arguments between a party who is somewhat mistrusted and a party who refuses to listen to self-evident technical specifications is going to be no different from a Three Stooges pie-throwing vignette.

Heck, throw into fray the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers -- it's going to be fun to watch lawyers wrangle before the court arguments about a technology that's been tried and tested and already passed over worldwide.

And to think all this arguing involves spending our taxpayers' money. Heh.