Patent ID: 8378826

Claim:
A method for decommissioning a tag, comprising: receiving at the tag a decommissioning signal from a key device; entering into a decommissioned state in response to receiving the decommissioning signal, wherein entering into the decommissioned state includes deactivating alarm functionality of the tag; transmitting a message to a monitoring system entity, the message indicating the tag is decommissioned, wherein the monitoring system entity is not the key device; prior to receiving the decommissioning signal, further comprising: receiving at the key device an activation code; generating activation data based on the activation code; transmitting the activation data wirelessly to a network entity; receiving, from the network entity, validation data indicating whether the activation data is valid; and in response to receiving the validation data that authenticates the activation data, activating configuration data at the key device, wherein the configuration data is associated with the activation data.