Eight people get ID chips implanted today
No, I'm not telling you where I am
By Mike Magee, 10/05/2002 08:13:39 BST
DOCTORS HAVE STARTED implanting silicon chips with personal data accessible by ysing hand held scanner.
The LA Times reported that the VeriChip, made by Applied Digital Solutions, is merely the first in a series of more advanced devices that will be able to receive GPS signals.
The first eight people to receive the VeriChips are people with Alzheimer's disease, and this type of application has obvious benefits.
But the chips, which according to the paper are about the size of a rice grain, could be used for more sinister applications.
Last February, Pat Gelsinger, chief technical officer of Intel, told the INQUIRER that in a year or two "motes" operating at radio frequency and containing data, would be omnipresent over a period of time.
He pointed out the usefulness of knowing where any family member, for example, was at any given time, and rejected suggestions that such "motes" constituted any privacy threat.
Thing is, here in the UK, any objection to extending the cloak of gookdom is met with the stock: "If you've nothing to hide, why should you mind".
This argument has led to practically every city centre here using CCTV cameras, and even sick TV programmes using such footage to show people having sex in lifts, or puking in the street after a long night out.
"Security", many people suspect, is really just "Insecurity". µ