belt and braces

I have on my desk the packaging from an electric toothbrush, it has a barcode, RFID and magnetic tag attached to it.
This sort of thing commonly happens when new technology is introduced, older standards continue to be supported at least for a time – look at the introduction of digital TV http://www.digitaltvandradio.co.uk/
. However there is another aspect, that there is actually a complex ecosystem of tagging and that RFID tags do not fulfill the complete needs of businesses in two areas:

1) Uncooperative security ie where the punter might want to take the item from the shop without it being scanned

2) Point access - where the item is only scanned at one point ie checkout.

Its hard to see how current RFID tags can completely fulfill the first role, as essentially disabling them is not difficult and they tend to be larger and harder to conceal. I've noticed that PAK'nSAVE are now putting magnetic anti-theft strips into meat labels, so the unit cost must be relatively low. However a model that trusts the customer as in "self scan" systems may well not need such control and may be more appropriate. The second point is more technical and may require specialist ariel design.