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Witness Testimony
Mr. Mark McLaughlin
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology: What the Future Holds for Commerce, Security, and the Consumer Good morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the sub-committee. My name is Mark McLaughlin and I serve as Senior Vice President for VeriSign's Naming and Directory Service division. VeriSign is the leading provider of critical infrastructure services for the Internet and telecommunications networks. Every day VeriSign supports 10 billion domain name lookups and emails, provides Internet security for thousands of corporations, processes 25 percent of all North American e-commerce and facilitates billions of daily phone calls and millions of daily SMS messages. I am here today to talk about VeriSign's selection as the root operator for the Electronic Product Code network. An Electronic Product Code (EPC) embedded on an RFID tag provides a unique number that can be assigned to individual items in cases and pallets within the supply chain for identification and tracking. With the EPC network, computers that use RFID technology to identify objects can acquire associated information about that object, enabling manufacturers to track items and materials throughout the supply chain. This technology will revolutionize the way products are manufactured, sold and bought. VeriSign was selected to operate this network by EPCglobal, a non-profit joint venture of the Uniform Code Council (which manages the allocation of bar codes) and the EAN International (which provides similar services internationally) responsible for driving the global adoption and implementation of the EPCglobal Network across industry sectors. VeriSign's role in making the network work is building and operating the Object Name Service, or ONS. Building and operating the EPC network is a comfortable fit for VeriSign. VeriSign has over a decade of experience operating a proven, global platform for the .com and .net domain name system. VeriSign also brings a strong record of securing Internet commerce and communications that will be critical to the success of the EPCglobal Network. The EPC system works much like the Internet's Domain Name System VeriSign operates as the authoritative directory for all .com and .net internet addresses. Like the Domain Name Addressing system (DNS), which points Web browsers to the server where they can download the Web site for any particular Web address, ONS will point computers looking up EPC numbers to detailed product information stored on the network . The system leverage the power of today's Internet, through a distributed architecture that will enable individual companies to share information about products in more than one secure database on the Web. VeriSign's experience will help the EPC Network deliver integrated services that allow each company in the supply chain to authenticate themselves onto the network; allowing producers, wholesalers and retailers to share secured product data in real-time. Through the use of the EPC Network, businesses can become more efficient and productive in logistics, inventory management and product placement. To support this new model for supply chain management thousands of enterprises need to be able to securely access, in real-time, potentially billions of unique EPCs from a highly available global ONS directory. The possible cost savings and efficiencies through out the system are vast with this technology. VeriSign's involvement with EPCglobal will help ensure the system is run with real-time accuracy on a secure platform. Around the issue of consumer privacy, the most important thing I can tell you is about the tag itself. Much has been said and written about concerns that somehow reading a tag on a product will give away sensitive information about a consumer. That is not the case. The tag does not supply any information about a consumer. Having said that, VeriSign is committed to working with all groups, especially the privacy groups, to ensure a secure and reliable network. That is our legacy on the Internet that we are excited to bring to the EPCglobal network. More specifically, we will provide our leading digital certificate technology to ensure that only authorized parties will be allowed access to information on the network. These types of certificates are also used to protect billions of online transactions. Additionally, encryption technologies can be employed to encrypt transmission of any information that is deemed to be sensitive. This will prevent snooping and hijacking. VeriSign takes our role in RFID technology as seriously as we have taken our role is supporting the Internet's continued growth. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the sub-committee this morning. I am happy to answer any questions you may have today or in the future as we move forward with this important technological innovation. |
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