ALISON WILLIAMS, director, Aegate Ltd, replies:

We agree and thank Mr Phillips for highlighting that there are important privacy considerations which must be addressed if using RFID, particularly on medicines.

We should point out that the pilot also used unique barcodes as an alternative solution to using RFID. These were equally as successful as RFID in achieving much of the patient safety benefits. However in the fight against counterfeits, the level of security is much improved with the use of RFID.

Although it was not covered in the article, Aegate takes seriously the privacy concerns associated with the use of RFID. There are a number of different types of RFID tags available and not all of these are suitable for use on medicines. In setting up the pilot a number of issues concerned us, including reliability of tag deactivation. Aegate took advice from a number of privacy groups and developed a code of best practice that required all participants to comply. This can be viewed here

In essence, we selected RFID tags that had a read range of only a few centimetres. These tags were read-only and contained nothing more than a random “dumb” number. This ensured that even if the tag had been read while in a bag or clothes, only a meaningless number could be viewed, it could not possibly identify the type of medicine or the person carrying the item. As a result it was not necessary to deactivate tags. All participating dispensaries were also required to display a notice stating where both the readers and tags were situated.

We believe that this pilot has set the standard and method for an acceptable use of RFIDs in pharmaceuticals. Most of the 120 consumers we interviewed did not recognise what RFID was. One told us “it’s just another technology, it’s how you use it that’s important”. We agree.