I was reading Google News today, when I came across a news story stating the following:

The increased value of items in left luggage has also led to a rise in looting and theft at airports, which remains a grey area for insurance companies.

A grey area that could be partially eliminated.

How? Simple.

With the recent theft of Sukh’s luggage from the SFO airport, I thought of many preventive measures that could have been taken by the airlines and the airport. Here’s one methodology:

Music stores use magnetic stickers on CD’s and DVD’s to help prevent theft. Similarly, airports could use stickers (with some infamous RFID technology) to track stolen baggage. Upon leaving an airport, a?portable demagnetizer could be used to sign-out a piece of luggage (and possibly take an image of the person taking the luggage, along with some ID).

Less headaches for passengers, airlines and insurance companies. That is, as long as the airports do their part on securing the information stored in RFID databases.

Update:

Delta already has something similar in place.

Update 2 (10/19/2006):

RFID baggage tagging will be implemented soon.