An Rfid-Based Track-And-Trace Anti-Counterfeiting System

This dissertation, "An RFID-based Track-and-trace Anti-counterfeiting System" by 潘俊軒, Chun-hin, Poon, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of the thesis entitled An RFID-Based Track-and-Trace Anti-Counterfeiting System Submitted by POON Chun Hin for the degree of Master of Philosophy at The University of Hong Kong in August 2007 Counterfeiting has become a major threat to the global economy. It inflicts huge losses on originators of genuine products, threatens consumer safety, leads to tax loss, and destroys jobs. Although a number of anti-counterfeiting solutions have been adopted, the recent trend of globalization makes it even harder to cope with counterfeiters. Indeed, many anti-counterfeiting solutions can no longer provide the required level of security, while others do not avail themselves of automatic verification of product authenticity. There is therefore a need for an effective anti- counterfeiting solution that can be widely adopted across a supply chain to protect its integrity. RFID facilitates automatic processing of product information, making it a promising technology for anti-counterfeiting. It makes mass authentication of products at item level viable, enabling a complete product pedigree to be constructed across a supply chain. A number of RFID anti-counterfeiting mechanisms have recently been proposed. This study first compares the strengths and weaknesses of these mechanisms, and evaluates possible impacts of threats to RFID. Subsequently, a track-and-trace anti- counterfeiting system using RFID is proposed, which requires all partners in a supply chain to record all the transactions of a product along the supply chain to construct a complete product pedigree. This enables consumers to safeguard their stake by authenticating a product with RFID mobile phones before making payment. The proposed system is aimed at relatively high-end consumer products, and it helps protect genuine products by maintaining product pedigrees. The mechanism is relatively simple and easy to implement. It does not require sophisticated and expensive technologies. This makes it cost-effective for the host companies to introduce the system. The product pedigrees recorded by the system also facilitate tracking and tracing of counterfeit problems and subsequent investigations into suspicious activities. The proposed system is a practical tool for protecting supply chain integrity and it significantly improves consumers' confidence. (305 words) Signature: POON Chun Hin DOI: 10.5353/th_b3955690 Subjects: Radio frequency identification systems Product counterfeiting Industrial property