What are RFID Wallets? Why do we need them?

Every one of us uses Credit Cards, Debit Cards for making a transaction online or for making payment at a shopping store or to a merchant that takes payment through them. Since the evolvement of plastic money, the number of people who are looking to breach its security has been evolved significantly as well, for example let us imagine that we are performing a transaction in an ATM machine and if someone has already put a card skimmer there then our whole information will be copied into the skimmer and then anyone can use our card information to perform any kind of transaction, It is because the information that is stored in our cards are in the form of magnetic strip that we tend to see on  the back side of our Debit or Credit Card in unencrypted form so there is no extra security on it and the card skimmer can directly read it.

If you want to read about RFID technology, you can read it here.

In other countries, there is the concept of RFID cards are used, where the Credit or Debit cards have the RFID technology implemented within the cards so the customers do not need to swipe the cards anywhere and they can simply make the payment by tapping their cards on the RFID reading machine. Now, if we are placing these RFID cards in your normal leather wallet that we tend to carry, It is possible for someone to simply place a RFID Scanner near us and read the information stored on the cards as we all know that RFID works on the concept of Radio waves so it is possible for someone to read its information from a little distance if he/she is simply having a RFID scanner machine with them. This stealing of information using electronic gadgets is called as Electronic PickPocketing.

This was a big problem before the invention of the RFID wallets, but since these wallets have come into the market, this problem has been solved, the RFID wallets block the Radio waves from coming inside it and thus no one can not read the information from it.Fortunately, radio waves are relatively easy to interrupt and block, and that’s how an RFID-blocking wallet works: they encase your credit cards/Debit cards in a material that interferes with radio waves. If the wallet is properly constructed to be a Faraday cage, it will block all electromagnetic fields and prevent communication between your cards and RFID scanners. It's not only about the security of your plastic cards, in the US and other foreign countries the passports or the driving license are also embedded with a RFID chip so if you are using a RFID wallet then no one can steal your passport or other documents information as well.

If you want to see a practical implementation of blocking radio waves, you can take an aluminium foil and cover your mobile phone within it, and now try to make a call to the covered mobile phone, you will see that you won't be able to call it as the aluminium foil is not allowing radio waves to communicate to your mobile phone and receiving a call.

Check out this real incident posted by an individual on Reddit about RFID skimming here.

The need of RFID wallet is only when your Credit or Debit Card is containing a RFID chip, and in near future we will be seeing that our plastic cards will be coming with an embedded RFID chip that will provide an extra layer of protection, as we know that the cards we are currently using are easy to breach cause of the information are stored on the magnetic strip that we see on the backside of our cards and as this information is stored in normal form it is easy for another person to steal it, and once a RFID chip gets embedded within the cards then in order to protect someone to steal our information from a little distance using RFID scanner, we will be needing RFID wallets. 

Normal Card

That's all in this article of mine, I hope and believe now you guys have a clear vision about the RFID wallets and why do we need them.