Transcripts of the first congressional hearing on a very exciting and a complex new technology application. Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, as it is commonly known, is frankly a World War II-era technology that has begun to find new commercial and government application in just the last few years. In basic terms, the most common commercial application of RFID used radio waves to transmit data from a transmitting device called a ''tag'' to a scanning device called a "reader" which can be networked with a computer data base. These RFID tags can be attached to products and packaging individually. Readers are able to activate tags via radio signals and receive tag data without "line-of-sight" scanning, which is a limitation for the common barcode. In terms of the data embedded in the tags, work is being done to develop common standards known as the Electronic Products Code or "EPC" to create unique numerical identifiers for individual items. This would allow RFID readers to receive EPC data from tags on items and products that can be matched through a data base for identification and for other purposes.