RFID As Common As TiVo — Allan Griebenow And AXCESS

Reprinted with permission from AIM and RFID Connections. Click here for more RFID Connection Interviews.

RFID Connections interviewed Allan Griebenow, President and Chief Executive Officer of AXCESS International about RFID Issues pertaining to security, tagging, and access control. He also talked about the future of RFID, where the technology will be as common to the average user as iPods, Satellite TV and TiVo.

Over the last few years we've seen increasing interest in tagging computer assets because of the loss of intellectual property and most recently the loss of personal privacy data. Our ability to tag those kinds of assets reliably and protect them has now become more exciting because it seems as if we're reading everyday of an example of personal privacy lists being compromised. What's interesting about this is that we're able to tag these assets; we can provide that level of protection, provide immediately alerting to the company or to the other people that are worried about being a first responder to that kind of an issue. And quite frankly, the real problem in that whole area of asset protection is preventing the tag or the asset from leaving the facility. Many people think about GPS solutions and things such as LoJack applications. About ninety four percent of the assets that leave never come back. About seventy five percent, according to FBI statistics, disappear because of insiders. And we're able to protect those assets and provide accountability as well.

Further, we provide a custodian relationship where a customer's personnel badge can be electronically linked to the asset. So it facilitates the ease of movement. For instance, if you had your laptop, you'd be able to move around a facility without concern. But, for example, if I tried to remove it, there would be an alert.

One of the interesting things about providing asset protection from an RFID perspective is there have been such concerns in the industry about RFID invading personal privacy. In this case we're protecting personal privacy and we're very excited to be able to do that. Personal privacy has a number of ramifications. In our case, RFID is actually protecting those privacy lists and we do that today for Fortune 100 companies, the government as well, in addition to some of the industries that are very concerned with privacy, such as the financial services industry and the accountancies. So we're providing that kind of protection, and again, not only for personal privacy lists but also for their intellectual property information. So we think that the IT Asset marketplace is going to be a very robust marketplace and an opportunity for Axcess in the near future.

Allan Griebenow is President and Chief Executive Officer of AXCESS International. He came to AXCESS in 1999 when it acquired Prism Video where he was founder and Chief Executive Officer since 1994. Prior to Prism Video, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Vortech Data Inc. before its acquisition by Eastman Kodak. He has over 20 years of experience in telecommunications and advanced applications, starting his career in 1979 as a Presidential Management Intern with NASA. Griebenow received a B.S. degree in business administration from the University of Maryland and earned an MBA from San Francisco State University.

AIM Global
AIM is a global trade association comprising providers of components, networks, systems, and services that manage the collection and integration of data with information management systems. Serving more than 900 members in 43 countries, AIM is dedicated to accelerating the growth and use of AIDC technologies and services around the world.

Our members are manufacturers or service providers of technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID), bar code, card technologies (magnetic stripe, smart card, contactless card, optical card), biometrics, and electronic article surveillance (EAS).