Fed II Star - February 19, 2006

REAL LIFE NEWS: COMPANY CHIPS WORKERS

An Ohio company has implanted silicon chips into two of its employees, to test the technology as a way of controlling access to secure sites. CityWatcher.com is a private video surveillance company, and the electronic identification chips will allow access to a room where it holds video footage for government agencies and the police.

RFID chips are inexpensive radio transmitters that give off a unique identifying signal, and are becoming common as a way to track goods in transit, and also have been implanted in pets to provide identification, but this is the first time US workers have been chipped.

The chips are encased in glass and implanted in the upper right arm of the recipient. They can then be read by a device similar to a card reader. The chief executive of the company, who has had a chip put in his own arm, said, "There's nothing pulsing or sending out a signal. It's not a GPS chip. My wife can't tell where I am."

Maybe she can't now, but once the scanners become more common surely it will be possible to track people as they walk down the street. This is a deeply scary bit of technology with huge implications for privacy and civil liberties. With governments becoming more and more interested in monitoring their citizens (with ID cards, CCTV, black boxes in cars and so on) how long before this technology is considered as a useful way to keep tabs on people?

Scary!