Although personnel entering a construction site are mandated to wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), hardly ever is PPE checked for accurateness, completeness, or whether its shelf-life has expired. Various commercially-existing automated identification (ID) and information technologies (IT) were used to design a mobile Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) portal for checking the PPE compliance of personnel. When such gates are positioned at the entrance or within construction sites and once low-cost passive RFID tags are embedded or attached to PPE, automatic site access, time recording, and completeness control can be performed. These improve the logistics of the existing compliance checking process and provide users with timely feedback. Results to “personnel entering a construction site” demonstrate how the safety process, especially the awareness among personnel wearing PPE, can be pro-actively managed and controlled. Data further suggests the limitations of the developed approach and its potential for gathering leading safety indicator data. Display omitted •Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is hardly ever checked at job site entrances.•A mobile passive RFID portal that checks PPE compliance is introduced and explained.•It improves PPE control and management and provides rapid feedback to personnel.•A user interface enables pro-active safety education and learning for the workforce.•Field applicability and use in other areas (security/search & rescue) are explained.