Defense RFID policy.

• Author: Estevez, Alan F.
• Position: LETTERS - Letter to the editor

Your May 2007 article (Tracking Military Supplies No Longer Requires RFID, page 22) contains incorrect information.

This erroneous information is damaging and counterproductive to the Defense Department's efforts to communicate the requirements for the application of RFID.

The title presents an incorrect statement. The use of RFID for tracking military supplies throughout the department remains an ongoing requirement. In fact, the Defense Department is committed to using both passive RFID and active RFID. Your article confuses the two requirements. The details of the policy for passive and active RFID can be found on the website www.dodrfid.org.

The statement "the Defense Department has relaxed an earlier mandate" is incorrect. The requirement to apply RFID remains fully in effect. The department has made the requirement mandatory. The military services and the Defense Logistics Agency are now writing RFID requirements into their contracts.

Each Defense Department supplier must comply with the RFID requirements in his or her respective contract. Dan Mongeon, of Agility, is referring to active RFID tags which, unlike passive, are rarely required to be applied by suppliers themselves.

The Defense Department has consistently maintained that it will use a variety of automatic identification technologies. On July 30, 2004, Michael W. Wynne...