BRUSSELS, Belgium and LAWRENCEVILLE, New Jersey – October 14, 2009 – EPCglobal Inc,
a subsidiary of the global not-for-profit standards organization GS1, today announced the
dissemination of the Strategic Overview Guide and Technical Implementation Guide for GS1
EPCglobal RFID-based Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) for reusable and disposable tags.
These guides address all relevant challenges and issues on how to implement an RFID-based
EAS solution within a retail environment using existing GS1 and GS1 EPCglobal standards.

RFID-based Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) is a technological method for deterring and
detecting theft of consumer goods. RFID-based EAS tags, based on the GS1 EPCglobal Gen 2
standard, are fixed to an item’s packaging or to the item itself. These tags can be removed
and/or disposed by consumers or sales associates after purchase. The goal of RFID-based
EAS is to leverage the benefits of EPC (Electronic Product Code) and RFID (Radio Frequency
IDentification) for EAS functionality. These include increased visibility, improved inventory
tracking, and process productivity along the supply chain extending to the retail sales floor with
the advantages of EAS item-level theft deterrence, detection, and protection.

Extending the value of EAS, RFID enables apparel and other retailers to know not only when a
theft incident is occurring, but they can now know precisely what was stolen and re-stock the
shelf accordingly, avoiding the high cost of missed sales opportunities due to out-of-stocks.

The RFID-based Electronic Article Surveillance also creates an opportunity for retailers and
suppliers to take significant cost out of the supply chain in several ways, including one
standardized inventory based on a single technology and a simplified tagging process. It
provides the retail industry with the business benefits of specific product identification. RFIDbased
Electronic Article Surveillance will help drive the adoption of EPC item-level tagging while
offsetting the cost, and it can be leveraged for other applications. It also improves the consumer
Press Release – GS1 EPCglobal RFID-based Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) 3
shopping experience by providing increased product availability, speed and quality of service
and consumer savings.

“By using RFID technology for multiple purposes, such as EAS and inventory visibility, we can
further integrate supply chain processes and the potential to have distributed benefits for all
partners involved is significantly enhanced.” said Dr. Gerd Wolfram, Head of CIO-Office at
METRO AG.

The Strategic Overview Guide and Technical Implementation Guide for GS1 EPCglobal RFIDbased
Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) were developed within the framework of the
EPCglobal community, more specifically the RFID-based EAS Phase 2 Joint Requirement
Group. The members of this group gathered the requirements and scenarios to help understand
the needs of an RFID-based EAS solution. Based on this input, the guides were developed to
illustrate where EAS implementation is possible for reusable and disposable tags and
approaches to enabling the business use cases outlined using existing GS1 and GS1
EPCglobal standards. The next phase of this effort will include updates to the technical
standards to address tags that are embedded in products and applications and product
categories that will involve these embedded tags (non-easily removable tags) that will require
electronic deactivation or tag alteration.

GS1 EPCglobal continues to deploy EPC/RFID technology for EAS while respecting Consumer
Privacy and adhering to the Guidelines on EPC for Consumer Products. The guides can be
downloaded at no cost by accessing the following link:
http://www.epcglobalinc.org/standards/implementation_guidelines/

“By combining the advantages of EAS and EPC/RFID technology, we potentially realize the
benefits of visibility throughout the supply chain together with the capability of deterring and
detecting theft.” explained Brand L. Elverston, Director Asset Protection Systems and Analysis
at Walmart Stores, Inc.

The partners participating in the EAS Phase 2 Joint Requirement Group include:
Accenture LLC; American Apparel & Footwear Association; Auto-ID Labs – Japan; Avery
Dennison Corporation; AXWAY/formerly Cyclone; Best Buy Company, Inc.; C & A Europe SCS;
Carrefour; Certus Warensichenrung-Sys GmbH; Checkpoint Systems, Inc.; Cisc Semiconductor
Press Release – GS1 EPCglobal RFID-based Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) 4
Design and Consulting Gmbh; Conair CorporationETRI - Electronics & Telecommunication
Research Institute; Gerry Weber International AG; GS1 Global Office; GS1 Member
Organizations from Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Japan,
Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Taiwan, U.K., and U.S.A.; Innovision Research & Technology PLC,
Intellident Ltd.; Invengo Information Technology Co.,Ltd.; Johnson & Johnson; MET
Laboratories; METRO Group; Motorola, Inc.; Nedap; NXP Semiconductors; Packaging
Corporation of America; RF-IT Solutions GmbH; Sirit Technologies Inc; STS Emniyet ve Bilisim
Sistemleri AS; Tailorit GmbH; Sensormatic / ADT; University of Arkansas; UPM Raflatac; and
Walmart Stores, Inc.

Media Contact:
Karl Van der Spiegel
GS1 Global Office
Phone Number: +32 2 788 78 16
E-Mail Address: karl.vanderspiegel@gs1.org
Press Release – GS1 EPCglobal RFID-based Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) 5

About GS1 EPCglobal Standards:
GS1 EPCglobal standards are a set of integrated industry-driven standards which have been
developed to meet user’s requirements enabling the identification of objects, data capture and
sharing of information among partners throughout the supply chain. These standards are
developed within the framework of EPCglobal Inc.

About EPCIS (EPC Information Services)
EPCIS is a standard used to track the progress of objects as they move through the supply
chain. The data shared at each read point in the supply chain provides WHAT, WHEN, WHERE
and WHY of each read. EPCIS provides the Information Services necessary for the storage,
communication and dissemination of EPC data. It provides standards event capture and query
interfaces for obtaining and sharing data about unique objects in the supply chain within and
across organisations.

About EPCglobal Inc:
EPCglobal Inc is a subsidiary of the global not-for-profit standards organization GS1, and
supports the global adoption of the Electronic Product Code as industry-driven standards to
enable accurate, immediate and cost-effective visibility of information throughout the supply
chain.

For more information about EPCglobal Inc, visit: www.epcglobalinc.org

About GS1:
GS1 is a neutral, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the design and implementation of
global standards and solutions to improve the efficiency and visibility in supply chains. GS1 is
driven by more than a million companies, who execute more than five billion transactions a day
with the GS1 System of Standards. This makes it the most widely used supply chain standards
system in the world.

For more information about GS1, visit: www.gs1.org