Implantable chips get under skin of security experts

Chicago — The science-fiction-like prospect of planting chips inside the human body took on a decidedly real flavor last week, in the wake of an admission by the Mexican Attorney General that he and 160 government officials have been "chipped."

Applied Digital Solutions Inc., maker of the so-called VeriChips that were used, acknowledged that its distributor sold the chips to the Mexican government late last year. The Palm Beach, Fla., company then added fuel to the firestorm by saying that it is also working with banks, credit card companies, hospitals, medical clinics and security agencies to spread the concept further.

The news generated heated response among privacy advocates, financial analysts and security experts. "Promoting implanted RFID devices as a security measure is downright loco," said privacy advocate Katherine Albrecht, founder and director of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (Caspian). Albrecht argued in a prepared statement that the announcement was a political maneuver by the Mexican authorities that would not help promote personal security in any way.

Still, security experts said last week that the move could be a precursor to a much larger trend toward "chipping" of humans over the next 20 years.

"In a decade or two, there will be a commonly available system with the ability to know who people are, where they are and what they've done," said John L. Peterson, a futurist and security expert with the Arlington Institute (Washington), and a former member of the National Security Council staff. "It's inevitable that something like this will happen. With terrorism, the external pressures are too great for it not to happen."

Beyond security Indeed, it was the threat of security breaches that prompted Mexican officials to use the technology in the first place. Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha told reporters earlier this month that 160 employees of his office were using the implanted chips as a means to enter and exit secure government facilities in Mexico City.

Antonio Aceves, general director of Solusat Corp. (Mexico City), the distributor that sold the chips to the Mexican government, acknowledged that chips had been implanted, but said he had signed a nondisclosure agreement barring any further discussion of the details. "We can say only that the attorney general and 160 employees have VeriChips in their bodies," Aceves told EE Times.

Other, unverified news reports said that members of the Mexican military and police, as well as employees in the office of President Vincente Fox, might also be "chipped" in the next few months.

Executives at Applied Digital Solutions said Mexico's use of the chip could be the tip of a very large technological iceberg. The VeriChip Division, which has struggled over the past two years and had annual revenue of just $550,000 in 2003, is working at getting the chip accepted by regulatory agencies, doctors and hospitals, as well as banks, credit card companies, security agencies and even gun manufacturers.

A capsule-like RFID device first used in animals, the VeriChip is small enough, at 11 x 2 mm, to be injected through a syringe and implanted in a variety of locations within the human body. It includes a memory that holds 128 characters of identification information, an electromagnetic coil for transmitting data and a tuning capacitor, all encapsulated in a silicone-and-glass enclosure. The passive RF unit, which operates at 125 kHz, is activated by moving a company-designed scanner a few inches from the chip. Doing so excites the coil and "wakes up" the chip, enabling it to transmit data.

Applied Digital, which sells 3 million to 4 million chips into the animal market annually, sold only about 7,000 VeriChips for human applications last year. Still, the company continues to advance its technology, apparently in expectation of a larger market eventually opening up.

Applied Digital is working on doubling the device's memory size to 256 characters and is developing read/write capabilities for it, said Peter Zhou, vice president and chief technology scientist. The read/write capabilities would open up another broad swath of potential applications, he said, particularly in the health care market, where the chip could be used to carry continuously updated medical information.

"We believe that medical applications will be the primary source for getting the chip into society," said Scott Silverman, chairman and CEO of Applied Digital Solutions. "After that, people will be able to use the chip to do other applications as well."

The cylindrical device could soon be endowed with biometric sensors that would allow it to read temperature or glucose levels inside the body. The tiny glucose monitor would employ enzymes that react by producing a voltage proportional to glucose levels. Zhou said the company already makes the temperature sensor available to the animal market. He said the glucose monitor is being tested, but warned that neither has been approved for human use.

The company also said it is working on new antenna structures that would stretch the unit's sensing distance from a few inches to a few feet.

CEO Silverman believes the strongest driving force behind the technology may be the simple need for a device that can "speak" for patients. Used in conjunction with implantable pacemakers and defibrillators, as well as artificial hips and knees, the device could provide medical personnel with information the patient would be unlikely to know. It could contain, for example, data on the manufacturer of an implant, its serial number, recall information, who installed it, where it was installed and the date of its last battery charge.

"Information-gathering techniques in emergency rooms are archaic today," Silverman said. "This is a device that can do the talking for an incapacitated patient."

Scan my arm Applied Digital has also talked at length with banks and credit card companies about using the technology as a secondary form of authentication to help prevent credit card fraud, executives said last week. Under the company's plan, retailers would scan a chip in the customer's arm to authenticate identity.

"The banks and credit card companies we've talked to are extremely concerned about identity theft," Silverman said. "This would be one way for them to know that you are who you say you are."

The company said it has also talked with a South Carolina-based small-arms manufacturer about the possibility of using the technology in handguns for law enforcement agents. In such applications, a modified scanner in the gun handle would work in conjunction with an identification chip embedded in the palm of a police officer's hand. If the scanner identified the officer, the gun could be fired. If no positive ID were made, the gun wouldn't work.

Applied Digital executives say that security applications, like those in the Mexican government, could also kick-start the technology's rise. Initial targets include federal buildings, power plants, military bases and prisons.

To address personal-security issues, company researchers have also recently completed an implantable prototype unit that combines global-positioning satellite technology with a cell phone, identification chip and a battery. The unit employs GPS as a locator, then uses the cell phone to transmit a signal. The device, which measures 1.25 x 0.5 inch, could be surgically inserted beneath a user's collarbone.

Applied Digital executives believe the GPS-based technology would be especially appropriate in locales like Central and South America, where kidnappings are reportedly reaching epidemic proportions. Authorities in those areas, in an apparent attempt to stem the problem, are increasingly considering RFID solutions.

"In Mexico, we have more than 150,000 missing kids," said Aceves of Solusat. "When you're looking at so much kidnapping, privacy concerns become less important."

Privacy advocates, however, predict that the use of RFID will backfire, with grotesque consequences. "When someone steals a car, the first thing they do is disarm the locator device," said Albrecht of Caspian. "So who's to say that a kidnapper won't want to disarm a locator device? The idea of a kidnapper probing underneath the collarbone is frightening."

Indeed, news reports suggest that such a scenario may already be occurring. Mexican authorities are said to have recently broken up a ring of kidnappers, known as "Los Chips," who searched their victims to see if they were carrying chips that could help them to be located.

Industry analysts said last week that they don't expect the sale of implantable chips for humans to take off any time soon. Animal-tracking systems, which have grown into a business that is estimated at more than $70 million per year, are set for more growth in the wake of mad-cow disease scares. But consumers, not surprisingly, have resisted the idea of having chips implanted in their own bodies.

"If people don't want RFID tags in their underwear or in their designer clothes, why would they ever want them under their skin?" said Mike Liard, an RFID analyst for Venture Development Corp. (Natick, Mass.).

Still, security experts believe that over the next decade, chips for humans, or some variation thereof, will emerge as a market. The looming threat of terrorism and the advent of such diseases as SARS will spark a demand for tracking and identification technologies.

"The technology will insidiously insert itself into the system, first in smaller ways, then in larger ways, until people get used to it," said Peterson of the Arlington Institute. "Then it will become a common and easy way to establish identity."

Terror-related issues will likely push the technology to the forefront more quickly than would otherwise happen, Peterson added. "If a nuclear weapon goes off in some major city, there will be extraordinary pressure to figure out ways to keep it from happening again."

Indeed, "RFID chips in humans are still a long way off and no one really knows what will happen in that market," said Erik Michielsen, director of RFID and ubiquitous networks for Allied Business Intelligence Inc. (Oyster Bay, N.Y.). "But you can never say never."

They have GPS, Lomax, OnStar,etc for carsand now they want to put tracking devices in people.

I'm with others on this thread. If they try to implant something in by body, I'll first implant something in theirs (and it only weights 125 grains).

Didn't need my SSN for my credit cards, nor for my drivers license. I had the option of putting my SSN on the license, but I forebore to do so. As for my membership in the credit union, all I had to supply were my address, drivers license and proof of employment.

You see, there were a number of lawsuits a few years ago about having to use one's SSN for identification purposes. To head off any more such lawsuits, most companies do not require it as identification any more.

But, hey, you knew that. You just didn't want to let facts get in the way of your lovely paranoid fantasy.

Talk about ease of theft.

Kidnap the person and keep them alive long enough to drag their body to various locations to aquire material.

If the person is uncoperative, chop off the body part.

(remember the scene in 6th day with Ahnold using a severed thumb to get into a secure area?)

There would literally have to be scanners every few meters to make such tracking possible.

RFID-enabled license plates to identify UK vehicles

"The UK-based vehicle licence plate manufacturer, Hills Numberplates Ltd, has chosen long-range RFID tags and readers from Identec Solutions to be embedded in licence plates that will automatically and reliably identify vehicles in the UK."

"Chipped plates The plates are the same shape and size as conventional plates, and are permanently fitted to the vehicle in the same way. But each e-Plate contains an embedded tag with a unique, encrypted identification number that is transmitted by the tag for detection by RFID readers. Multiple tags can be read simultaneously by a single reader at speeds of up to 320km per hour (200mph), up to 100 metres (300 feet) away."

"The reader network, which includes fixed location readers (for use on the roadside) and portable readers (for use in surveillance vehicles and handheld devices), sends the unique identifier in real time to a central system where it is matched with the corresponding vehicle data such as registration number, owner details, make, model, colour, and tax/insurance renewal dates."

""If people don't want RFID tags in their underwear or in their designer clothes, why would they ever want them under their skin?" said Mike Liard, an RFID analyst for Venture Development Corp. (Natick, Mass.)."

If I was rich and had kids that were in danger of being kidnapped, I would probably chip them with locators. I would at least think about it long and hard.

Actually I didn't know that. Do you have any links/sources I can look at?

Also her father was deceased from just before she was born, and I think she also had to have it for her mother to receive social security payments on her behalf. I'll ask my daughter if she remembers exactly how many different places required it.

For a short while back in the 70's I was on welfare, and I think I had to get each of my kids social security numbers in order to be able to receive it. All their numbers are sequential.

In short, unless you live on cash under the radar, you have to have a social security number in order to function in our society.

IIRC, RFID needs to be queried by a scanner and doesn't necessarily send out a signal otherwise.

Yes, RFID is a passive technology: the chip broadcasts its presence only when a beam transmitted by the reader hits it. This is to cut the cost of the chip and reduce the 'cross-talk' you would get if a whole supermarket full of these chips yelled back at your scanner.

"I'm sure that some sort of "personal Lowjack" is being worked on, but it won't be RFID. It's going to have to be an active transmitter beacon that you will only want to use as a last-ditch alternative to torture and beheading, because it will microwave your body in the process of telling searchers where you are."

from the article: "To address personal-security issues, company researchers have also recently completed an implantable prototype unit that combines global-positioning satellite technology with a cell phone, identification chip and a battery. The unit employs GPS as a locator, then uses the cell phone to transmit a signal. The device, which measures 1.25 x 0.5 inch, could be surgically inserted beneath a user's collarbone."

Such low power wouldn't microwave your body but I wonder how they would turn it on? Surely it wouldn't be on all the time? You would have to re-open the wound every week to change the battery. Also, would it have enough power to transmit even if the kidnappers were to put their hostage in a basement?

Applied Digital(IBM) will donate heavily to the usual suspects in congress in return for placing a requirement for the RFID in healthcare legislation. Anyone refusing the chip will be arrested for violating Federal law and forcibly implanted. It's all for the children.

Ok. The point I'm trying to make here is the SSN has gone far, far beyond its inteded use. One of the major objections of those opposed to the social security system when it was first proposed was the abuse prone to numbering citizens.

Sure enough that abuse has occurred, despite heroic efforts to combat it.

While the damage done to privacy by SSN's was profound and unprecedented, it pails in comparison to the potential for abuse posed by these chips. IMO, the RFID is one of the most powerful data gathering devices ever invented. Today we are told we are in a post 9-11 world, and "everything is different" meaning security is paramount above all other concerns.

In light of this, why should we believe chips won't be abused?

I'm doing the Google searches now. I specifically remember a suit brought against a college for using the SSN as an identifier. The problem is, I don't have access to the legal case search system.

I believe that there were suits against having the SSN on driver's licenses as well

However, you need your SSN to open bank accounts and get bank cards and get a morgage and stocks and bonds. You probably don't need them to get a gas or store card. but, try renting a car with cash.

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