Posted on 07/14/2004 4:40:27 PM PDT by MarcoPolo
Security has reached the subcutaneous level for Mexico's attorney general and at least 160 people in his office — they have been implanted with microchips that get them access to secure areas of their headquarters.
It's a pioneering application of a technology that is widely used in animals but not in humans.
Mexico's top federal prosecutors and investigators began receiving chip implants in their arms in November in order to get access to restricted areas inside the attorney general's headquarters, said Antonio Aceves, general director of Solusat, the company that distributes the microchips in Mexico.
Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha and 160 of his employees were implanted at a cost to taxpayers of $150 for each rice grain-sized chip.
More are scheduled to get "tagged" in coming months, and key members of the Mexican military, the police and the office of President Vicente Fox (news - web sites) might follow suit, Aceves said. Fox's office did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
A spokeswoman for Macedo de la Concha's office said she could not comment on Aceves' statements, citing security concerns. But Macedo himself mentioned the chip program to reporters Monday, saying he had received an implant in his arm. He said the chips were required to enter a new federal anti-crime information center.
"It's only for access, for security," he said.
The chips also could provide more certainty about who accessed sensitive data at any given time. In the past, the biggest security problem for Mexican law enforcement has been corruption by officials themselves.
Aceves said his company eventually hopes to provide Mexican officials with implantable devices that can track their physical location at any given time, but that technology is still under development.
The chips that have been implanted are manufactured by VeriChip Corp., a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions Inc. of Palm Beach, Fla.
They lie dormant under the skin until read by an electromagnetic scanner, which uses a technology known as radio frequency identification, or RFID, that's now getting hot in the inventory and supply chain businesses.
Scott Silverman, Applied Digital Solutions' chief executive, said each of his company's implantable chips has a special identification number that would foil an impostor.
"The technology is out there to duplicate (a chip)," he said. "What can't be stolen is the unique identification number and the information that is tied to that number."
Erik Michielsen, director of RFID analysis at ABI Research Inc., said that in theory the chips could be as secure as existing RFID-based access control systems such as the contactless employee badges widely used in corporate and government facilities.
However, while those systems often employ encryption, Applied Digital's implantable chips do not as yet. Silverman said his company's system is nevertheless save because its chips can only be read by the company's proprietary scanners.
In addition to the chips sold to the Mexican government, more than 1,000 Mexicans have implanted them for medical reasons, Aceves said. Hospital officials can use a scanning device to download a chip's serial number, which they then use to access a patient's blood type, name and other information on a computer.
The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) has yet to approve microchips as medical devices in the United States.
Still, Silverman said that his company has sold 7,000 chips to distributors worldwide and that more than 1,000 of those had likely been inserted into customers, mostly for security or identification reasons.
In 2002, a Florida couple and their teenage son had Applied Digital Solutions chips implanted in their arms. The family hoped to someday be able to automatically relay their medical information to emergency room staffers.
The chip originally was developed to track livestock and wildlife and to let pet owners identify runaway animals. The technology was created by Digital Angel Corp., which was acquired by Applied Digital Solutions in 1999.
Because the Applied Digital chips cannot be easily removed — and are housed in glass capsules designed to break and be unusable if taken out — they could be even more popular someday if they eventually can incorporate locator capabilities. Already, global positioning system chips have become common accouterments on jewelry or clothing in Mexico.
In fact, in March, Mexican authorities broke up a ring of used-car salesmen turned kidnappers who were known as "Los Chips" because they searched their victims to detect whether they were carrying the chips to help them be located.
Vicente Fox is the Anti-Christ? Who knew?
More likely they are for finding them when they've been kidnapped and held for ransom.
That seems to be a fashionable trend in Mexico.
Seriesly.
I wonder if for the last four years or so while Fox has been exhorting his people to go work in America; if he now has in place, nicely distributed throughout the population centers, minions who's movements may be mapped with each pass of a satellite or two.
That seems to be a fashionable trend in Mexico.
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| Yeah, it's always been a fashionable exercise for those south of the border, but then if someone is vicious enough to kidnap, to cut off fingers and other such stuff for the vogue avenue of proof of life, what's to stop them from removing the chip?
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LOL! I certainly never even suspected that the Temple might be constructed in Tijuana.
You're right, it might have been better not to announce it in the press, but they're Mexicans, that's special. LOL!!!!
I've been following this technology for several years. This chip doesn't transmit anything & needs to be in close proximity to a scanning device for it to function.
ID verification for ingress / egress to restricted access areas is probably its best use at present. But as the scanning capability improves the chip may be of assistance in recovery of kidnap victims.
Oooo, oooo, I did! I did!
Hmmm...could it be...SATAN?!
A portion of the chip is coated with a substance called Biobond® which prevents it from migrating within the body.
It could be dug out or removed through dismemberment.
Sooooo....they're too forgetful to bring their badge?
I am amazed that they think this offers any security at all, especially when it is not even encrypted.
The chip readers might be proprietary, but they are available commercially now, and more widely - and clandestinely - later on. Get a reader, and get it near someone with access - close enough to learn an authorized ID number.
The technology to create a chip with a particular static ID number is certainly already known, and certain to be easily duplicated, proprietary or not.
Garage door openers and car alarm systems with code shifting ought to be the minimum for security, and this stuff isn't even close. But these would require active circuitry and memory, way beyond what is available in an implantable chip today. What is missing is a power source to drive the circuitry, without causing havoc inside the body. Rechargeable batteries, like a pacemaker? Perhaps, but they go bad after a while, too. Glucose, like much of the body already uses? We haven't figured that out yet, but maybe we will. Maybe we could figure out how to use pressure changes, like the pulse, for small amounts of power.
Once all the Mexicans are chipped the US could set up a series of RFID scanners along the border. We could then keep track of every wetback entering the country.
The parent company, Applied Digital Solutions, has said that they have something in development. It's called Thermo Life.
Perhaps someone with a technical background can comment as to whether this holds any merit.
Pretty soon; they will have lawyers trying cases because of the sicknesses associated with a foriegn object in your body.
I wonder if Fox has been implanted with one?
I don't think that you could find a suitable temperature DIFFERENCE within the body to generate enough power this way. You would need both a hot location and a cold location.
Government officials tagged like cattle. What's not to like?
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