[LINK] New Material Launched to Protect RFID Credit Cards

[Geoffrey Ramadan]

http://www.chasecorp.com/news_releases/RFID_SHIELD_06_2007.pdf

Chase Corporation, a 61-year-old, hundred-million-dollar protective 
materials manufacturer, has turned its sights to RFID. The company's 
PaperTyger division, which produces tear and water resistant laminated 
papers, has just announced RFID Shield, a new material aimed at the 
contactless credit card market. RFID Update spoke with Chase 
Corporation's national sales manager Mark Weibel about RFID Shield.

RFID Shield is a new three-layered material in the same vein as Chase's 
other PaperTyger laminated paper products which are as strong and 
durable as synthetic but function like conventional paper, so that they 
can be printed and converted in standard machinery. RFID Shield is 
specially designed to block radio frequency, protecting the chip around 
which it is wrapped from "skimming", or the surreptitious scanning from 
a nearby hacker's RFID reader.

Chase's Weibel said that his company sees the protection of contactless 
credit card data as the most attractive target market. The RFID Shield 
material, which Chase sells in bulk, could line envelopes that deliver 
contactless credit cards to bank consumers, thereby protecting the data 
en route. It could also be used to construct a slim card sleeve in which 
consumers might carry their contactless credit cards within their 
wallets or purses.

"We work with the two largest envelope manufacturers in the world, who 
call on the consumer banks that issue credit cards," Weibel explained. 
As part of Chase's market evaluation, the envelope manufacturers 
proposed the idea of RFID shielding to the banks to gauge their 
interest. "It was an overwhelming yes," recounted Weibel. "There was a 
lot of interest." When banks compare the marginal expense of shielded 
envelopes and sleeves to the extraordinary cost of identity theft 
recovery and investigation, the shielding starts to seem like a no-brainer.

He said a number of orders have already been placed to test RFID Shield, 
and he predicts that within a few months Chase will start receiving a 
significant volume of orders for actual usage. National Envelope has 
already commercialized it and put it on sale as the Smart Card Guard 
model of envelope.

While there have been other products like RFID Shield released on the 
market, they have largely been targeted directly at consumers. Chase's 
strategy of working with banks and envelope manufacturers is a very 
different approach. Weibel also emphasized that competing products are 
relatively thick at ten to twelve millimeters. RFID Shield, by contrast, 
is only 4.5 millimeters thick and looks like everyday paper.

RFID Shield appears to be a well-conceived product with the potential 
for high-volume demand. But one has to wonder if banks' deployment of 
protective liner for contactless credit cards would undermine their 
assurances that the cards are safe and secure. If the cards should be 
wrapped in a special sleeve, does that mean that consumers are at risk 
of identity or financial theft if they do not use a sleeve? Furthermore, 
if a consumer uses a sleeve, and then has to pull the card out of the 
sleeve to buy something with it, doesn't that additional labor defeat 
the very convenience contactless cards were meant to provide? It is 
questions like these that banks will no doubt face as they consider the 
deployment of RFID Shield and its potential competitors

Regards
Geoffrey Ramadan B.E.(Elec)
Chairman, Automatic Data Capture Association (www.adca.com.au)
and
Managing Director, Unique Micro Design (www.umd.com.au)