The invention relates to a secure communication between an electronic label (A) and a reader (B), in particular for the authentication of the label by the reader, in which: the reader (31) transmits at least one datum (Ch) to the label, the label calculates a combination comprising at least the datum from the reader (Ch)) and a secret (Si) specific to the label, and the label communicates (32) the result (C(Si, Ch)) of the combination to the reader (B) for verification purposes. The aforementioned combination (C(Si, Ch)) is preferably calculated using a current secret value (Si) delivered by a pseudo-random number generator (33). The reader (B) is also provided with a homologous pseudo-random generator.