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posted by janrinok on Sunday August 19 2018, @07:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the slippery-slope dept.

Author Glyn Moody has written an article over at Private Internet Access regarding implanted microchips, such as RFID and NFC responders. Initially seen as one-off bad ideas, these projects centered around implants are starting to come more frequently and with stronger incentives. If allowed to become more common there is a danger that they will become normalized and extended to uses that are less and less benign.

Just recently, in Ohio, Toledo City Councilman Rob Ludeman suggested microchipping criminal offenders as an alternative to using electronic monitoring ankle bracelets. He justified the idea on the basis that this would prevent the tracking devices being removed when committing additional crimes. The Toledo Blade reported Ludeman as saying:

“I’ve seen enough shows on TV where the individual has slipped it off and they’ll go commit a crime and slip it back on,” he said. “I can’t believe it’s an inhumane thing and I’ve got to believe the technology is there. We microchip our dogs, cats, there’s got to be a way that you can put a microchip in and it can’t be removed until their sentence is served or probation is over.”

Other council members rejected the idea, and experts pointed out that the implanted chips used for animals would not work in the way Ludeman wanted, since they do not function like a GPS tracker that can be monitored from afar, but are scanned once a lost animal is located.

Nonetheless, the incident is significant, because it indicates that implanted microchips are starting to enter the political mainstream. And even if they can’t be used as GPS trackers, there are plenty of other applications that have troubling privacy implications. For example, a common suggestion is that a person’s medical history could be stored in such chips to aid medics in an emergency. In fact, an implanted product of this kind was launched back in 2002, but it never caught on. Indeed, the company’s own research indicated that nine out of 10 people were uncomfortable with this kind of application. But it is easy to imagine new entrants to the sector arguing that technology has moved on now, and that strong encryption could handle concerns about unauthorized access to data.

Source: Private Internet Access : After call to implant microchips in people awaiting trial, are they about to become the next threat to our privacy?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @03:09PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @03:09PM (#723787)

    I for one anxiously await for my cerebral cortex management engine! Just plug the fucker right in!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @05:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 20 2018, @05:49PM (#723845)

    No true cyborg fallacy!