A method for authenticating an electrosurgical system accessory comprising initiating a surgical procedure through a user interface on an electrosurgical generator, automatically determining whether an electrosurgical accessory is plugged into a generator receptacle, activating an RFID reader connected to the generator in response to a determination that an accessory is plugged into a receptacle, transmitting through the RFID reader to an RFID tag in the accessory a privacy password, transmitting a unit identification code from the RFID tag to the generator, displaying a device type associated with the transmitted unit identification code, checking a status of the accessory, unlocking a tag memory management if the read status code indicates the accessory has not previously been used, reading encoded data from the tag memory, computing a device authentication code from tag memory encoded data, transmitting the computed authentication code to the tag, and enabling the accessory in response to a match.