IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2017 - 116

2) Uncomfortable about it until I understood it completely
and had seen it demonstrated and tested for any side
effects and so on
3) I would prefer to implant but would like know in depth
about the viability
4) No clue
5) No idea
6) Don't know
7) Undecided.

oveRall value-benefIts veRsus sacRIfIces
1) It is very useful, but at the time, it is also risky.

discussion

reason, but nonetheless, the respondents were absolute in
their response. Only a small number of respondents, 12 in
total, were truly undecided in the maybe category or would
conditionally accept the concept.
This indicates, more than anything else, that microchipping
people in the workforce is a divisive issue: Either an individual
is vehemently opposed to the idea of being microchipped for
employee ID or he or she is willing to accept the implant with
some certainty. Out of the 186 responses received from the
total number of respondents (N = 453), only 48 people perceived they would accept an implant for employee ID purposes
in the workplace. About 13 of those 48 people were indifferent
to the type of technology instituted with respect to employee
ID, stating they would not be bothered, were neutral about, or
it was no hassle whether it was an implantable device.

theMatIc analysIs
The results presented previously have been codified into similar themes. By far, there were more perceived reasons to
reject implants as electronic employee ID than to accept
them. What we saw from the codification exercise was that
those participants who responded to the open-ended question
had a clear-cut perceived reason as to why they would accept
or reject being implanted for employee ID. That reason may
have been expressed in a feeling rather than an identifiable

Table 1. The frequency counts of words in responses.
Word-Like

Count

Relevance

Feel

24

100%

Issues

24

100%

Body

23

96%

Absolutely

20

83%

Implanted

20

83%

Happen

13

54%

Brother

12

50%

Work

12

50%

Security

7

29%

Idea

5

21%

Implant

5

21%

Employees

5

21%

Need

5

21%

Technology

4

17%

Job

4

17%

Uncomfortable

4

17%

Believe

3

12%

Leave

3

12%

116 IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

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content analysIs
Table 1 provides a presentation of the words that came up
frequently in the content analysis of the open-ended question,
"How would you personally feel about being implanted for ease
of identification with your own organization?" The terms most
frequently recorded by the transnational participants in describing
their response to implants in the workplace included: feel, issues,
body, absolutely, happen, Big Brother, work, security, idea,
implant, employees, need, technology, uncomfortable, believe,
and leave. This demonstrates that, holistically, respondents were
aware of the potential to implant people for identification purposes but felt there were many issues, that is, barriers to acceptance, namely those issues related to surveillance (i.e., Big
Brother). The question itself caused some people to feel uncomfortable and to consider leaving if mandatory implantation was
enforced. It is important to state, however, that most proponents
of implantables (e.g., Retherford of Citywatcher.com) do not
believe that implantables in the workplace will ever be imposed
but will be presented as one of several options and that, over time,
the convenience will overcome any doubts or fears end users
might be harboring personally [25].

concept Map
The relationship between terms found frequently in the participant responses is presented in the concept map found in Figure 1.
The most frequently used terms are represented by larger
nodes, for example, body, absolutely, feel, and issues, and
their proximate colocation with other terms indicate a contextual power relationship. Reading this concept map, we can
deduce that, even if RFID implants were introduced for security
purposes in the workplace, employee sentiment would generally
be one of feeling uncomfortable. And whether this was due to
Big Brother, or other beliefs (e.g., religious, cultural, or societal), the absolute response would be to go so far as leaving
that job and workplace.

concLusion
This article presented and analyzed the results of a transnational study that surveyed small business owners, asking the
question: "How would you personally feel about being
JULY 2017
http://www.Citywatcher.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2017
