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Microchips For Human Implantation As ID
securitas writes: "Reuters is carrying this story about Applied Digital's VeriChip -- a subcutaneous microchip (like the ones they use to tag pets, livestock and wildlife) used as ID for humans. They are radio-activated and would initially be used to store and transmit medical data via the Internet. They will be also used as tracking beacons and personal ID according to a company exec. The launch will be in Europe and South America. The company has made an FDA application and the FCC has already licensed airwaves for a similar device." We've mentioned this company's "Digital Angel" before, but there's an understandable sudden interest in such tracking technologies.
Let's say that I contact someone while I'm at work, wearing the icky blue polyester suit. How am I going to read this chip? With a regular driver's license, I can take it back to my car, shine a light on it, see if it's fake, run it for warrants and license status, find out if the holder is a sex offender, and copy everything onto a citation or a field interview card. And if my flashlight and my car's map light quit, I can still read them.
Oh, and did I mention I can look to see if it's been faked, maybe compare it to one of the standard references?
With these things, no. I'm a cop, not an electronics tech. I've got no way of knowing if the signal is legitimate or from a black-market home-programmed chip. It'll probably take special equipment to read these chips, and I've learned that expensive electronics have a way of failing about fifteen seconds before I need them. And six lines of data leaves no room for a signature.
So, I'm not entirely sure about the practical aspects of this, or whether there's actually anything to gain.
And how about we look at the legal aspects. I'll admit that I haven't gone through either the Federal or Colorado constitutions with a magnifying glass lately, but I don't recall seeing any authorization for government to brand people like so many livestock.
Of course, I could be wrong about the Constitition thing. However, at the academy they did say that the parts of the Constitution that were written in the margins in red crayon didn't count.
But then, a lot of the experimentation with implantable ID was overseas. And in much of western Europe and in Japan, cops are expected to know aspects of individuals' lives that I don't even tell my parents. Like who's sleeping with who. Or who lives where-there are ways in the US for that information to be pretty much completely unavailable to police, but not in Japan or most of western Europe (for some reason, France, Germany and Holland spring to mind, but I wouldn't swear to that.)