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RFID

RFID, or radio frequency identification, uses radio waves to wirelessly identify people and objects, powering everyday technologies like badge readers, key fobs, and race timing chips.

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About this video

Radio frequency identification, commonly known as RFID, is a technology that uses radio waves to identify and track tagged objects or individuals. Radio waves occupy a specific range of the electromagnetic spectrum and can travel through the air to carry data between a tag and a reader, making them well suited for contactless identification at short to moderate distances. The technology is embedded in widely used physical security tools, including the badge readers and key fobs that control access to buildings and restricted areas. Beyond access control, RFID appears in everyday applications that illustrate how flexible the technology can be. Race timing chips are a practical example — a chip assigned to a specific participant logs the exact moment that runner crosses the start line and again at the finish line, producing a precise, automated time record. In both the security and sporting contexts, the underlying principle is the same: a tagged item carries a unique identifier that a reader can detect and act upon without any manual interaction from the user.

What you'll learn

What's covered

RFID Technology

Key terms

Radio Frequency Identification
RFID
Radio Frequency Identification uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects or embedded in access cards; in physical security, RFID cloning and eavesdropping attacks can allow unauthorized facility access.
Access Control
A security mechanism that restricts access to resources based on policies, roles, or identity.
Asset
Any resource of value to an organization, including hardware, software, data, and personnel.
Authentication
The process of verifying the identity of a user, device, or system.

Topics

Rfid Radio Frequency Access Control Asset Tracking Wireless Communication Physical Security

Transcript

RFID

The technology that's used in key fobs and badge readers is called RFID, radio frequency identification.

I'd love to get way more in depth into this, but we're going to keep this a little bit on the lighter side. Radio frequencies are just waves that go through the air. Specifically, they are a range right here that we see of frequencies that are going through the air, and what we can do is use those frequencies to communicate.

What we found is we've found a way that we can track things such as badges and those key fob readers and those type of things. We can track those, or we can use those radio frequencies in order to identify something. So that's what radio frequency identification is: it's going to identify. So this identifies me and grants me access based off of who I am.

A Race Timing Chip

Another example is something that I got when I ran a race. I ran a half marathon, and this was a timing chip on the back. In fact, I can peel this off, and what it uses is a radio frequency identification. So this right here identifies who I am, so that way when I cross the start line, it starts a timer for me, and then when I cross the finish line, it will stop that timer. Now they have the exact time of when I started and ended. And then I can be actually competitive with others that are on the trail as well.

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