Slashdot Mirror
More Companies Plan To Implant Microchips Into Their Employees' Hands (engadget.com)
"British companies are planning to microchip some of their staff in order to boost security and stop them accessing sensitive areas," reports the Telegraph. "Biohax, a Swedish company that provides human chip implants, told the Telegraph it was in talks with a number of UK legal and financial firms to implant staff with the devices."
An anonymous reader quote Zero Hedge: It is really happening. At one time, the idea that large numbers of people would willingly allow themselves to have microchips implanted into their hands seemed a bit crazy, but now it has become a reality. Thousands of tech enthusiasts all across Europe have already had microchips implanted, and now a Swedish company is working with very large global employers....
For security-obsessed corporations, this sort of technology can appear to have a lot of upside. If all of your employees are chipped, you will always know where they are, and you will always know who has access to sensitive areas or sensitive information. According to a top official from Biohax, the procedure to implant a chip takes "about two seconds...." Of course once this technology starts to be implemented, there will be some workers that will object. But if it comes down to a choice between getting the implant or losing their jobs, how many workers do you think will choose to become unemployed?
Engadget provides more examples, pointing out that in 2006 an Ohio surveillance firm had two employees in its secure data center implant RFIDs in their triceps, and that just last year 80 employees at Three Square Market in Wisconsin had chips implanted into their hands. Their article also hints that "no one's thinking about the inevitable DEF CON talk 'Chipped employees: Fun with attack vectors'"
Dr. Stewart Southey, the Chief Medical Officer at Biohax International, describes the technology as "a secure way of ensuring that a person's digital identity is linked to their physical identity," with a syringe injecting the chip directly between their thumb and forefinger to enable near-field communication. But what do Slashdot's readers think?
Would you let your employer microchip you?
An anonymous reader quote Zero Hedge: It is really happening. At one time, the idea that large numbers of people would willingly allow themselves to have microchips implanted into their hands seemed a bit crazy, but now it has become a reality. Thousands of tech enthusiasts all across Europe have already had microchips implanted, and now a Swedish company is working with very large global employers....
For security-obsessed corporations, this sort of technology can appear to have a lot of upside. If all of your employees are chipped, you will always know where they are, and you will always know who has access to sensitive areas or sensitive information. According to a top official from Biohax, the procedure to implant a chip takes "about two seconds...." Of course once this technology starts to be implemented, there will be some workers that will object. But if it comes down to a choice between getting the implant or losing their jobs, how many workers do you think will choose to become unemployed?
Engadget provides more examples, pointing out that in 2006 an Ohio surveillance firm had two employees in its secure data center implant RFIDs in their triceps, and that just last year 80 employees at Three Square Market in Wisconsin had chips implanted into their hands. Their article also hints that "no one's thinking about the inevitable DEF CON talk 'Chipped employees: Fun with attack vectors'"
Dr. Stewart Southey, the Chief Medical Officer at Biohax International, describes the technology as "a secure way of ensuring that a person's digital identity is linked to their physical identity," with a syringe injecting the chip directly between their thumb and forefinger to enable near-field communication. But what do Slashdot's readers think?
Would you let your employer microchip you?
"Would you let your employer microchip you?"
No. And i would call my lawyer to see if i can negotiate some sort of compensation for being fired although i doubt i would get any. I probably would get another similarly paid job afterwards but after a long negotiation period. I would have to live and eventually finish that mortgage on savings between jobs.
Real question: is "how the fuck is this actually better than biometrics?" Biometrics are relatively difficult to clone or spoof. A chip is just an ID card implanted in a person -- it can be cloned or otherwise spoofed more easily than the alternative.
As far as the employers, I agree with other posters' sentiments. Requiring employees to modify their bodies in such a way should be grounds for a massive lawsuit, or simply hanging from the nearest lamppost.
Hi RIck this is your state's unemployement board. I am sorry to say but we have to deny you unemployment benefits as this was a just cause termination based upon misconduct on your end.
Hi Rick this is your bank. You are behind on your car note. If you do not pay all back payments plus penalties we will send our repo man to repossess your car.
Hi Rick this is your wife. I can't be with a man without a job and Mike here has one. I am sorry but I want out of this marriage.
Now you tell me which option you realistically have? If you are like most people who aren't developers and make $56,000 a year (the real average for salaries) I bet you do not have the savings or the bargaining power to say no. Also I may add even if you and many other slashdotters try to say no it won't work as HR is used to average folks saying yes forcing everyone else to be in the minority which they will say no to hiring you.
Also having a gap on your resume is a very red flag that can damage your reputation and career. It will be noticed for years to come and many HR departments will blacklist you if they have not been fired themselves. That is just what they do all day and won't blink twice.
There needs to be unions and laws as scary socialistic as that sounds as there is always some desperate dufus who will ruin it for the rest of us even if you are in the top 5% of earners the other 95% will just say yes fucking it up for the rest.
http://saveie6.com/
I have worked at a couple of companies that have tried similar things, and what happens is that the people who can, leave, as soon as they line up a new job.
The boss is left with a bunch on numpties that can't get a job anywhere else.
The one that stood out was in the 1990's where the employer decided that everyone was available for weekend work with no notice, and (pre cell phone days) you were expected to provide a phone number for where you were going to be.
As soon as he yelled at one of my colleagues because she had spent the day at the beach with her kids I resigned.
Two others resigned that day with me, and several others left the following week.
That's what will happen with these things.
A researcher did this years ago in the UK.
It looks like a great headline but I think you will find that the legal and regulatory framework in the UK will kill this stone-dead in actuality. It boggles the mind that legal and financial firms are considering this and that their HR Departments haven't killed it.
One - unless it's an approved medical implant, any company encouraging employees to do this is leaving itself wide open to legal sanction. We're not even touching whether the person getting the implant was given enough information, advice etc. Even if it IS an approved medical devices, can you imagine the hammering any company that "enforces" this rule will get in the courts ? and it doesn't have to be direct, all an employee needs is a suspicion that they were sacked due to refusing and it's game on.
[Note for our American cousins : UK employment law is rather large and is [rightly] heavily weighted in favour of the employee.]
Two - whilst it might be trendy for Shoreditch scooter-riding social-media professionals, Unions and Civil Liberties organisations will fight it tooth and nail - and the former has lots of financial and political clout. If there is a Labour government next, it's dead in the water and I can't see even the Tories going for this.
Three - whilst it might be fine for your dog and cat, the idea of someone putting an RFID implant in me positively Orwellian.
I'm gobsmacked that this came out of Sweden which is meant to be a highly progressive society.