At a hearing in 2003, California state senator, Debra Brown said, “How would you like it if, for instance, one day you realized your underwear was reporting on your whereabouts?”That may sound slightly farfetched, but it actually might not be that far off at all. Brown was referring to the “verichip™”, a tiny computer chip containing Radio Frequency Identification Technology (RFID) that uses electromagnetic energy in the form of radio waves to track things from a distance, which is to be injected into human flesh for ID and payment purposes. The verichip contains a unique 16-digit electronic identifier. This unique number is used to access identification and personal medical information on a password-protected database.The verichip was renamed Positive ID in 2010 to “mark” the new year, but is still being referred to under its original name. The product is still relatively new, as it was only FDA approved for medical use in October of 2004.According to “Verichip-Mark of the Beast or Marvel of Technology” by Dale Hurd, CBN News Senior Reporter, Doctor Keith Bolton, the vice president and chief technology officer at Applied Digital Systems in Palm Beach, Florida, the first company to offer the microchip for insertion in humans, describes the verichip as “an advanced, digital identification.” Medical advisor, Dr. Richard Seelig, at Applied Digital explains,” The initial use will be to store personal identification or medical information, such as details about implanted medical devices like pacemakers, or artificial limbs, or allergies to medication. In an emergency, it could save a life.”Dr. Seelig has a chip in both his arm and his hip. He describes the implanting process as a seven second technique that involves a little bit of a local anesthetic, a small amount of pressure, and a band-aid.Washington Post’s Rob Stein in “Implantable Medical ID Approved By FDA,”Verichip’s chief executive, says Scott Silverman, argues the same point, “In hospitals today, many deaths occur because people aren’t able to communicate timely enough their medical information or because of wrong information. With verichip, you’ll be able to have accurate information even if a patient can’t talk. It’s a way to modernize our antiquated system of medicalrecords.”Privacy advocates however, fear it could endanger privacy and take a step towards a Big Brother future, in which we are tracked. “Once the technology is out there and is available, it raises the very real possibility that people in a position to require or demand it will begin to do that,” said Katherine Albrecht, the founder of AntiChip.com, who has campaigned against such devices. “It would obviously be possible to inject one of these into everyone. In the post-9/11 world, we are already racing down the path to total surveillance. The only thing missing to clinch the deal has been the technology. This may fill that gap.”Dr. Bolton stresses that verichip is voluntary, “We live in a free society, you can either elect to smoke or not. You can elect to have the verichip. So it’s a freedom of choice technology.But do we really have the freedom to make that choice?According to a Verichip news release in 2005, the verichip was inserted into victims of Hurricane Katrina for identification purposes. Is it ethical to insert something into an individual’s body without their consent? It could be argued that it’s okay to do so, because the individual is dead, but the 2007 new release from Verichip featured 200 patients who participated in a “project” involving the insertion and experimentation of the verichip over two years who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia without consent. I compare the two because neither were able to give consent. Is there a difference between living and dead? Should we worry that people will go behind our backs and put the verichip into our bodies without our consent as well?
Carl Defebo, Manager of Media and Public Relations at the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, answers, “We surrender a little bit of surveillance and privacy each day. It started with ATM’s, traffic lights, cameras in stores…we all agree to being watched somewhat because we think it makes us feel safer in cases such as theft, but we can’t lose or personal privacy or individuality.”Defebo commented on the issue because there is a possibility that the EZ Pass, a large benefit to the turnpike, may not be needed if verichip is in place. He is referring to the possibilities of the verichip’s future, suggesting the ability to track human beings just as pets are tracked, which seems to make the average individual find the verichip “skin crawling creepy and too personal.” Right now, the verichip is too small to allow GPS tracking, but it is only a matter of time until miniaturization.The verichip was created for use in tracking livestock and shortly after was used to track house pets in case they were lost or stolen. However, verichip predicts the identification device to be used by retailers to price products according to customers’ purchase history and value to store, pharmaceutical manufactures on prescription medications, banks to identify and profile customers who enter premises, government to electronically frisk citizens at invisible checkpoints, track citizens in airports and border-crossing points, track mail sent from point to point through embedded postage stamps, and to track library materials. The device would be able to track objects everything things such as movement and location temperature for food products, like milk, human body functions, medical records, bank accounts, and even how many eggs are left in your refrigerator at home.While there are many medical benefits from the verichip, with the future capabilities and the possibility of insertion without consent, I have a hard time believing the verichip will only be used in ways that are helpful. Medical, personal, and financial records are documents that are private and invading an individual’s solitude and the private life of the person is known as intrusion, which is against the law. It is these things that make me see the verichip as an invasion of privacy and something I don’t support until the technology has evolved enough for the benefits to greatly outweigh the risks.