An efficient technique to retrieve information from a damaged near-field communication tag

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss a technique of restoring data from a broken/damaged near-field communication (NFC) tag whose coil is damaged and seems unrecoverable.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper discusses a method to restore data from damaged NFC tags by designing a coil that matches the technical specification of NFC for restoring information. In this paper, an NFC tag with a broken antenna coil and its operational NFC chip is used for restoring data by making an external loop antenna for the same chip.

Findings

If the NFC tag is damaged, the information stored on the tag can be lost and can cause serious inconvenience. This research provides an excellent mechanism for retrieving all the information accurately from a damaged NFC tag provided the NFC chip is not damaged.

Research limitations/implications

One of the major limitations of this research is that the NFC chip remains intact without any damages. Data can only be recoverable if just the antenna of the NFC tag is damaged; any damage to the NFC chip would make it impossible for the data to be recoverable.

Practical implications

The research is carried out with limited resources in an academic institute and hence cannot be compared to antenna designs of the industry. Furthermore, industry vendors are using aluminum to design the coil; however, in this study a copper coil is used for coil design since it is far less expensive than aluminum coil.

Originality/value

NFC is a rather new short-range wireless technology and not much work is done in this field as far as antenna study is concerned. This study brings a technique to design a coil antenna for a damaged NFC tag to retrieve all the information without losing even a single bit of sensitive information.

Citation

Saeed, D. and Iqbal, R. (2017), "An efficient technique to retrieve information from a damaged near-field communication tag", International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 41-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJICC-08-2016-0028