Store RFID Detectors

[rgunn]

Hello everybody, been lurking for a while just reading the posts, but I have run into something that worries me in the past couple of days and want to see if it has happened to anyone else. Last night as my wife and I walk into the Borders bookstore the anti theft RFID sensor goes off on me. So I am worried about leaving the whole time I am there because I do not want to get searched at the door. We leave and no alarms. Yay.
Go into Pep Boys this morning and same thing happens again, except this time it gets me coming and going. Is this normal?

[seamusTX]

Welcome to the forum.

No, it's not normal. Do you know someone who is into practical jokes? I've heard of pranksters putting the tags in other people's purses and such.

I've made my mind up that if I ever set off one of those things, I'm going to keep walking as if nothing happened. I definitely will not let anyone except a peace officer search me. I'll let you know how this policy works out if it happens.

- Jim

[lws380]

Same thing happened to me at a local Target store. When I went in a few employess were standing at the entry. They immediately looked my way and I went on in. No 30.06 that I saw, so kept moving. Did not go off on the way out.

Curious to know if they detect metal too?

[Kyle(Houston)]

Hello everybody, been lurking for a while just reading the posts, but I have run into something that worries me in the past couple of days and want to see if it has happened to anyone else. Last night as my wife and I walk into the Borders bookstore the anti theft RFID sensor goes off on me. So I am worried about leaving the whole time I am there because I do not want to get searched at the door. We leave and no alarms. Yay.
Go into Pep Boys this morning and same thing happens again, except this time it gets me coming and going. Is this normal?

They are not set up to detect guns. You or your wife may have something in your pockets, purse, or your wallet that has a security tag still attached and not turned off.

Even if searched if you have a CHL you have not broken any laws what so ever unless the place is posted with a 30.06 sign.

[HighVelocity]

cell phones passing too close to the sensors will set them off.

[rgunn]

cell phones passing too close to the sensors will set them off.

Possibly was my cell phone, it is opposite my gun side. At both stores the detectors are very tight. The other stores with wider entrances have never gone off. So I blame the cell phone.

[fisherchris]

I just logged in to post the same question oddly enough.

Ever since I have been carrying the RFID scanners have been going off on a hit or miss basis. Sometimes it beeps going in but not going out and sometimes both. I never noticed it before and I have all the same other equipment, cell, etc. in my pockets.

The only thing I could figure is that the mass of metal somehow triggers some sort of interference.

I have noticed it happening at Target, Barnes and Noble, CVS, and some others. The cashier at CVS gave my wife and I the evil eye when it beeped us walking out after paying but we just kept walking since I knew full well that we were doing nothing wrong.

[frankie_the_yankee]

I've been carrying for 15 years and I have never had one go off on me except when a clerk has forgotten to disable the tag on something I bought.

The few times it has happened, I have just turned, caught a clerks eye and shrugged my shoulders. They always just wave me on.

I have never had one go off when entering a store.

They do not detect metal or guns. Not sure if it is possible for a cellphone to set them off, but mine never has.

[Dragonfighter]

I have only had one go off. The detectors are set to detect passive magnetic material like the tag. Some of them are more complex but the long and short is they have a magnet and when the magnet passes through the field it sets it off. The pads at the registers demagnetize which is why there are warnings not to place credit cards near them.

If they are sensitive enough they may pick up video tapes and if you have magnatic keys or a bunch of credit cards. I would bet it is not the gun but I could be wrong.

[AFJailor]

This may be the first post I have a good answer for. A lot of stores started sewing security tags inside the crotch or waistbands of pants, you may want to turn your pants inside out and search for a little pouch with a chip sewed into the seam somewhere. This happened to me MANY times before I asked a lady in Old Navy about it and told me to check my pants...sure enough there was a little white chip sewed to my pocket seam.

[KC5AV]

Please keep in mind that you are under no obligation to stop if the alarm sounds. You are also under no obligation to let them search your belongins or your person.

[srothstein]

You are under no obligation to comply with the security officer or store clerks, ever. BUT, and it is important, if the alarm goes off, they do have a legal right to detain you and may use force to do so.

I point to Code of Criminal procedure Article 18.16 on preventing the consequences of a theft. Note that it says there must be reasonable ground to believe the property is stolen. I feel the courts would uphold the store alarm going off as you attempt to exit as reasonable grounds.

And in the Penal Code, Chapter 9 allows force for an arrest by a citizen, as long as the arrest is lawful.

The bright side is that it is not illegal to resist the arrest by a citizen, and that most stores have policies against detaining people for just the sound of the alarm going off. I do not expect anyone to have any problem when they refuse to stop for the clerk or security officer, but it may be legal for them to stop you with force if you do.

And obviously, IANAL and this is just my interpretation of the law. You may feel free to disagree with how I read these articles, but I recommend against testing your disagreement in court (never be the test case).

[frankie_the_yankee]

RFID tags are not magnetic.

They are small silicon integrated circuits. The loop that you walk through continuously broadcasts a radio wave and "interrogates" any chip passing through it. The chip's antenna picks up this signal, rectifies it and actually uses it as power to run the chip. The chip detects the inquiry from the loop and broadcasts a signal of its own in response. If the chip has been "cleared" at the register it sends out the "clear" signal and the alarm does not go off. If it has not been cleared, it sends out a different signal and in response the alarm goes off.

Guns, metal, magnets, etc. cannot set these things off. I would tend to classify such reports as "urban legends".

But I'm not 100% sure about cell phones.

I once had a guy in RI solemnly relate how his concealed gun tripped one of these things while entering a store, and when the store people challenged him he agreed to discuss things in private. So they took him to a small room in the back where he claims he just showed them his pistol permit and told them, with a wink and a nod of course, that it would be against the law for him to go into it any further.

I listened to the guy and didn't say anything, but I was certain that the story was 99.99% baloney.

[KaProw]

Haha..

When I first started carrying, those dumb detectors would go off @ my Local HEB. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why. about a week later I was telling my wife that I keep setting them off as we walked into the store. yep, I set it off again. All of sudden it dawned on me that I had just gotten a new wallet.

Got back the car and started searching the wallet. the stupid tag was stuck on the inside of one of the creadit card compartments.

[jimlongley]

RFID tags are not magnetic.

Guns, metal, magnets, etc. cannot set these things off. I would tend to classify such reports as "urban legends".

But I'm not 100% sure about cell phones.

Amen.

One of the problems I have experienced with RFID technology is that the simplicity (read: cheap to manufacture) of the tag leads to frequent falseing. Any RF signal that resembles what the detector thinks it should see is enough to trigger the alarm.

It's kind of like one of my past giggles. Being a ham radio operator, I usually have a radio in the car, and in compliance with the rules I usually run the radio at the minimum power level necessary to establish and carry on communications, but sometimes I boost the radio up to full output for one reason or another, and when I do I have a tendency to set off multiple car alarms in mall parking lots.

The RFID tags operate at extremely low power, just by necessity, and cell phones operate at a (slightly) higher level, which can swamp the receiver of the RFID detector, causing a false alarm.