Evolving Technology and IT Standards for the Property & Evidence Room by Harvey V. Janelli, interactive mobile systems, inc. Over the past ten years we have experienced an evolution from analog to digital format in almost everything we touch. This disruptive technological evolution has also impacted the Property/Evidence Room and the Chain-of-Custody process as well. We've gone from manual forms-based property and records management, to paperless computer-based information systems and the use of bar-code as a means of automatic identification and data capture (AIDC). This first of a two part series, investigates how a new AIDC technology, and its commercial use, will impact property and evidence management in a profound way. The second part of the series will present the standards for both AIDC and new IT standards for Public Safety Information Systems that allow information sharing between disparate criminal justice systems not only within a jurisdiction but also between agencies. Evolving AIDC Technology for the Property and Evidence Room Radio Frequency Identification or RFID is a mature technology that has made a quantum leap into the main stream of automatic identification and data capture in 2003. This year will bring an even greater proliferation of the application of RFID into the commercial market and, as we will show, a prominent place in the enhancement of the Chain-of-Custody and Property/Evidence Management. What is RFID? RFID is the use of Radio Frequency (RF) as a non-contact, non-line-of-sight means of communicating digital information and identification about a tagged person, place or thing. How does it work? RFID works by using unidirectional or bidirectional radio waves to "talk" with a transponder (tag) that is affixed to a person, place or thing.
What are the components of an RFID System?
The RFID Tag (transponder) - this device contains the RF circuits and the non- volatile data storage (from a few bits to a few Kbits). The tag also includes an integral antenna. The two main types of tags are Passive and Active. The Passive tag requires no power and derives its' power from the transmitted RF signal. These tags "speak only when spoken to" and have a moderate range. The Active tags have a power source attached (an ultra-thin or small battery). These tags can be programmed to "speak" on a preset time pattern or upon an event (temperature, movement, excessive vibration, etc.) and have longer range capability. The tags come in three basic flavors: R/O; WORM; and R/W R/O - Read Only - meaning that the information has been mass programmed into the ROM of the chip when the chip is manufactured. Used mostly to replace UPC labels. WORM - Write Once Read Many - meaning the data is custom to one chip but is locked as R/O after it is first written to the tag. Used for sequential serial numbering of product (UPC plus) e.g., shrink-wrap software sold in retail (UPC code + serial number). R/W - Read Write - these tags can be written and re-written to as many as 100,000+ times. This is the most common tag used for inventory and transportation management, ergo property and evidence management. Passive RFID tags are manufactured in a number of shapes, sizes and frequencies and have a life of >10 years. Anti-Collision attributes are built into the chips to allow for multiple tag reads without interference from adjacent tags. Active tags must have the batteries changed every few years or less. With the proper reader antenna passing tags can be read at speeds up to 150mph (e.g., toll tags and rail cars). The Reader/Writer (transceiver) - this device transmits and receives the RF signals and data to and from the RFID tags. As in bar-code technology there are both fixed and mobile reader/ writers. In addition, some units only read and some do both reading and writing of the RFID tags. Unlike bar-code R/W RFID labels can be updated at anytime. Fixed Readers come with either integrated or non-integrated antenna. Some even come with Ethernet connectivity and can be placed on existing networks. The relevance of this fact will be expanded in the section on Property and Evidence applications. Cost of fixed units vary due to antenna integration and range from $250 - $3,000+. Mobile Readers come in pistol grip and hand-held (PDA) varieties. Some have the ability to read bar-code and to read/write to RFID tags as well. There are Compact Flash (CF) and PCMCIA modules than can be added to existing handhelds or laptops to provide RFID capability. Cost of handhelds run the gamut from $150 for a CF card, to $3-5,000 for a weather-proof combo bar-code/ RFID reader w/WiFi or CDMA (or both) communication capability. Readers can read up to several hundred tags and tend to be able to read up to 100 tags per second. RF safety is not an issue with RFID as all components are FCC Part 15 certified and are used in hospital environments today. The Antenna - most important, yet most overlooked part of the system. Antennas are crucial to the optimum use of a RFID system. The ability to "see" individual items in a sealed box may be limited by the improper selection of the antenna on either the RFID tag side or the reader/writer side of the equation. Antennas vary in size and are important in as much as the range of their read/write capability. In some applications you would like a short read range to omit other tags from being read. Applications such as door access and computer log-on require only one card to be read. Conversely, walk-by inventory of a warehouse or property room would require a greater range. Most of the range issues are controlled by the antenna size, shape and power. The Computer and Software - "Always the software!" If the antenna is the most overlooked item, then software is the most undeveloped (at this point in time). Although the readers/writers come with basic R/W software and "demo" system software, the ability to integrate this techno logy into enterprise information systems is a non-trivial task. We will go into more depth on this subject in our next article. However, the most important use of this technology in a property and evidence environment is the integration of RFID into the property and evidence management system. As with bar-code, the application of any AIDC technology should be seamless and of no consequence to the end user. Why has RFID taken so long to become a Main Stream technology? Texas Instruments first developed RFID 16 years ago. It all started with secure access and then moved on to Toll-Tags to zip thru toll booths and SpeedPass (EXXON) to fill your gas tank and now even SnowPass (RFID in a watch) as your ski-lift e-ticket. These applications have slowly grown as both the tag technology matured and the reader/writers became more sophisticated. RFID has been an evolutionary vs. a revolutionary technology. We now have RFID tags/labels costing 50 cents and rapidly declining. Tag cost has been a major factor in RFID replacing UPC in the retail markets. Like other digital technology e.g., the CD-ROM, it took multiple CD titles to drive both the CD-ROM drive and CD prices down. Supply and Demand works! ! The good news is that like CD's, RFID is now a consumer driven commodity product. The more the retailers drive its use, the lower the tag cost. In November 2003 both Wal-Mart and the DoD told their top suppliers that by January 2005 all cases and pallets must be RFID tagged. It won't be too far behind this date that item level tagging will be evoked. Gillette has ordered 500M tags for its' razor-blade packaging and is conducting a trial in England. The adoption of RFID by Wal-Mart alone will drive massive deployment of RFID. The implementation of the new EPC code and the rapid decline of the tag pricing this year will contribute as well. What this all means to the property and evidence manager is that property will already be tagged when it is acquired and if you're lucky RIW tags maybe used on that item, so you won't have to re-tag it, merely add your info to the existing tag. Will RFID replace Bar-Code? Never say never! However, it doesn't look like it will happen soon. Some human readable label or tag will still be necessary for now. The main attribute of RFID tagging is that it does not require direct human intervention, or line-of-sight to read a RFID tag. When both the authors introduced WORM optical disc imaging systems with NV Philips in the mid-80's the microfilm industry said it would never displace their media. Microfilm is still in use although most images are now stored digitally on disc; and IBM mainframes are still around, so we think that bar-code will co-exist with RFID for a few years to come. How many of you scan the UPC code in recording recovered property from a commercial break-in rather than hand coding the information? ...... We thought so...... What are the applications of RFID in Property and Evidence management? Chain-of-Custody - This is one of the most potentially best uses of RFID tags. We will present a scenario that may seem a little out there but the RFID technology is deployable NOW!! A patrol officer stops a suspect car. As the officer drives up behind the suspect car the RFID antenna on the patrol car scans the RFID license tag and transmits the data to the dispatch system which does a search of the Wants & Warrants systems both local, state and Federal. As the officer approaches the driver and asks for his license (RFID tagged) she scans it with her handheld RFID reader. The system tells her that the driver is not the owner of the car and the officer calls for a supervisor and after a search, with probable cause, finds drugs in the vehicle. The officer places the driver under arrest, handcuffs the driver and in addition, places a RFID wristband on one of his wrists. The information from the driver license is transmitted to the wristband via the handheld and queued into the Arrest & Booking system as well. The handheld also records the reading of the rights and notes that fact on the arrestee's RFID wristband. The drugs are placed into an evidence bag and RFID tagged (blank or sequentially pre- printed tag) along with time, date and GPS location. The owner's info is already in the handheld and the officers all wear RFID tagged badges (all their equipment is RFID tagged using a Quartermaster system) so it is easy to complete this preliminary arrest and evidence "e-form". The vehicle is also RFID tagged for tow and impound. As the patrol car approaches the station house parking lot the vehicle access tag (Toll-Tag) that has been in use for many years opens the gate and time stamps the event. As the officer and arrestee go through the back door that has a RFID antenna (connected via the agencies Ethernet) it collects the following info: the officers badge #; the arrestee's wristband info; and the evidence bag info and time-stamps the event. Once in the booking area more data such as biometric info. and some charging info. can be added to the prisoner's wristband. The officer now proceeds to the property room to log in the evidence. Upon entering the property room the evidence and officers RFID tags are read by the doorway reader. The location and time are recorded in the system. Approaching the Intake workstation the officer's RFID badge # and a live scan of her thumb complete the secure login. All of the data that was captured in the field has already been input into the system so there is not much left for the officer to do except enter a few more details about the evidence if they have not already been entered using the handheld. The evidence is now placed into the evidence locker and the locker RFID reader logs it in and time stamps it. In the morning when the property clerks come in and empty the lockers all the contents are read with their handheld (time, person and location stamped) and the system again is updated in real time. I think by now you get the idea that the Chain-of-Custody from crime-scene to property room and onto the lab, court-room and final disposal can be recorded by as many RFID readers as you can afford. You can also tag doorways, shelves, rooms, etc., so the handheld can be used as a security transport device. A certain route can be prescribed and any deviation is detected by the handheld. Multiple tags are more cost effective than multiple readers in some cases. Inventory Control - RFID tagging of the property room inventory allows for easier inventory management, reduction of misplaced items, and rapid check - in/out. In addition to what we've learned so far with the Chain-of-Custody example, RFID allows for other labor savings as well. You can perform a "walk-by" inventory of all the items in a property room. Using a handheld device all the tagged items can be inventoried without opening a cardboard box or lifting a piece of property. If you use a mid-range reader (~2 ft.) you can walk up to a shelf aim the reader at it and read all the tagged items on that shelf. In an open metal shelf environment the shelf above and below allow for a natural RF barrier and should stop the reader from "seeing" tagged items on the shelf above and below. Readers can read and store up to hundreds of items. Even if your property room looks like the IAPE "before" pictures, RFID tags can be read (metal is a barrier for certain frequencies) even if they are in a pile in the corner. Lost something? Although we know that never happens, using the "locate-an-item" feature a single item can be entered into the handheld and you will be alerted when you are in the proximity (range) of that item. Yes Dorothy, RFID can find a needle in a hay stack. Standards - There are numerous standards for AIDC and RFID. The most recent is the Electronic Product Code (EPC). The EPCglobal(tm) is a joint venture of the Uniform Code Council (UCC) who gave us bar-code and UPC standards and the European Article Numbering Council (EAN International). In November of 2003 version 1.0 of the EPC code standard was released. We will cover this subject in more detail in the second part of this series. Conclusion - RFID is an existing technology. In these authors
view it was "born" for property and evidence management. It is mature,
it has billions of tags deployed, it has international standards and is
a multi-billion dollar market with TI, NY Philips, IBM, Sun, and others
participating. One 50 cent passive tag or one active tag w/temperature
logging can make the difference in winning or losing a case or a lawsuit.
Simply put, "it's a good thing" ........ About the author: Harvey V. Janelli is the Managing Director at interactive mobile systems (all lowercase). His background in the IT and Telecom markets spans 30 years. He has served in technical, marketing and management positions at the Police Research Center (SHSU), IBM, TI, NV Philips, and Lucent. harveyjanelli@imobilesystems.com interactive mobile systems is an OEM software developer that licenses its iPEM property and evidence manager to vendors of Public Safety software and also works as a system integrator for agencies that are implementing their own ICJIS based on the DOJXML Data Dictionary. www.imobilesystems.com 7973 NE Sunnywoods Ln., Kingston, WA 98346 360-297-8725 Copyright © 2006 International Association for Property and Evidence, Inc. Reprinted from the Evidence Log, Volume 2003, Number 4, Page 16 |
