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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?
and attach a chainsaw to it.
[($)]
"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.
Those aren't "security measures" -- this is most like intrusive techbros being techbros. "Security" would involve biometric authentication, possibly multi-factor. This is no better than an ID card, other than the fact it's implanted -- it can still be cloned or otherwise spoofed.
First, chips are often obsoleted. The bits on HID proxy cards go up to handle attacks and business needs. I would not want something implanted where my next employer would demand version 1.0.0.0.1b of the chip and I have 1.0.0.1a.
Plus, look at IoT vendor reputation as a whole. I wouldn't trust these people to make a secure Wi-Fi light bulb that wouldn't get pwned. Would I trust them with something that I'm stuck with for life? Nope.
We already have biometrics. Why do we need some startup's chip, other than to give that startup a windfall profit?
You're a good boy!
About that vet appointment we scheduled for you next week. Be sure to wear a comfortable pair of pants.
Have gnu, will travel.
I hope we can do better than that. I really wanna see the unions say no! No union? Time to make one. This behavior should not be tolerated.
It's past that time, alas.
We've accepted selling ourself into indentured servitude for long enough that it's expected already - this is just one more example.
Work demanding to know your cell phone number, you having to wear a step tracker and heart rate monitor to get full insurance benefits, having to give HR your username/password to any social networking sites you use, fingerprint and eye scanners, scanning your network drives and reporting the content when you VPN in...
It should all have been protested a long time ago. But it's the proverbial lobster pot. One tiny temperature increment at a time, and you won't throw a fit and try to clamber out, until it's too late. Which it already is for many.
demand lifetime healthcare if they want to implant one
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.