Posted on 07/28/2004 1:25:12 PM PDT by BraveMan
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."
While I agree that eschatology tends to unhinge some otherwise sensible Christians--this business of implanting bar-code chips is too chilling to ignore.
that's a good summary of the expected progression
"Didn't need my SSN for my credit cards"
Since when can you get a credit card w/o a SSN?
Every app I've ever seen requires it.
Got mine through my credit union.
Looking back...and it might make for an intersting quiz when the concept first appeared in sci-fi movies...
Star Trek ?...
By now ..several generations are exposed to this.
Is this by accident?
Did Sci fi writers teach the corporate sector/Gov...
or did the concept get introduced to sci fi.
who might be the first sci fi writer to concieve this..and have it become part of a T.V. series or movie?
What the hell is a locator device that can only be detected from a few inches away (this can't be improved all that much by technological advances -- a little subdermal gadget can only obtain and emit so much power before it starts to damage the bearer) supposed to accomplish, anyway?
Memo: Avoid being kidnapped by a genius-level criminal mastermind -- it might occur to him that he ought to take away your cell phone and maybe even go through the complex technical process of removing its battery.
Who dreams up these ideas?
All credit requires a credit check, and for that you have to provide a SSN.
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