IEEE Spectrum March, 2007 - 22

WanteD: PoWeR-systems engIneeR

with experience in high-power (5-100-kw)
motor-controller design. Must be u.S. citizen
and have valid ISo1443-compatible accesscontrol RFId implant.

Sound farfetched? Today, yes.
A decade from now, maybe not.

tion, says Keith Bolton, vice president of government and international affairs for VeriChip. The highest-profile example of this
application came in 2004 when the attorney general of Mexico
and 18 of his staff had chips implanted to allow them to gain
access to certain high-security areas.
The tag is also finding use as a kind of implanted credit card.
In trendy nightclubs in the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, and
the United States, patrons can get "chipped"-at a cost of about
US $165 in one establishment. In future visits, "by the time you
walk through the door to the bar," one proprietor told Britain's
Daily Telegraph, "your favorite drink is waiting for you, and the
bar staff can greet you by name."
And the list of proposed applications could grow quickly.
VeriChip is advancing a scheme to "chip" soldiers, as a replacement for a soldier's traditional dog tag, and a VeriChip officer has
proposed chipping guest workers entering the United States.
Before too many of those suggestions become realities, we
need to examine carefully the very real dangers that RFID
implants could pose to our privacy and our freedom. If we don't
figure out the risks and come up with ways to mitigate them,
someone answering that ad for a power engineer may live in a
world with considerably less privacy and feel compelled to have
an implant just to be able to get a job.

With the proliferation of radio-frequency identification technology and the recent, but increasing, use of implantable RFID
chips in humans, we may already be on a path that would make
such an ad commonplace in a 2017 issue of IEEE Spectrum.
The benefits would be undeniable-an implantable RFID chip,
which is durable and about the size of a grain of rice, can hold or
link to information about the identity, physiological characteristics, health, nationality, and security clearances of the person
it's embedded in. The proximity of your hand could start your
car or unlock your front door or let an emergency room physician know you are a diabetic even if you are unconscious. Once
implanted, the chip and the information it contains are always the VeRIChIP tag's main use, as a means of identifying patients
with you-you'd never lose your keys again.
who might be unable to communicate with caregivers and of
But there is a darker side, namely the erosion of our privacy accessing their medical records, could clearly be lifesaving
and our right to bodily integrity. After all, do you really want to in emergency situations. As long as the patient has provided
be required to have a foreign object implanted in your arm just informed consent and the privacy of the patient's medical
to get or keep a job? And once you have it, do you really want records is adequately protected, there are few ethical concerns
your employer to know whenever you leave the office? And do with the technology. But VeriChip Corp.'s well-meaning attempt
you want every RFID reader-equipped supermarket checkout to improve personal health care may serve as a beachhead for
counter to note your presence and your purchases?
wider use, and that expansion could create urgent ethical issues,
Until a couple of years ago, chipping humans was largely particularly if an element of coercion enters into the process.
the domain of cybernetics provocateurs like Kevin Warwick or
Consider, for example, a proposal by Scott Silverman, CEO of
hobbyists like Amal Graafstra [see Graafstra's accompanying VeriChip. In an interview on 16 May 2006 on Fox News Channel
article, "Hands On"]. Then, in 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug (a U.S. television network), he proposed implanting chips in
Administration, which regulates medical devices in the United immigrants and guest workers to assist the government in later
States, approved an RFID tag for implantation in humans as a identifying them. Shortly afterward, the Associated Press quoted
means of accessing a person's health records.
President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia as telling a U.S. senator that
This tag, called VeriChip, is a short-range transponder that relies he would agree to require Colombian citizens to be implanted
on the signal from a reader unit for its power supply [see photo, with RFID chips before they could gain entry into the United
"Anatomy of an RFID Tag"]. When exposed to a varying magnetic States for seasonal work.
field from the reader, the chip powers itself up and repeatedly
Guest workers might ostensibly consent to having chips
transmits a 16-digit code that is unique to the tag. According to implanted. But would chipping them be truly voluntary? Such
the company, 2000 people have already had tags implanted.
"voluntary" actions may determine a person's ability to earn
The VeriChip tag is part of a health information system called a living, and the worker might not view the implantation as
VeriMed. The code contained in the implanted chip points to a something he or she could refuse. What person facing poverty
record in a database identifying the patient and containing that at home and given the prospect of a job in a different country
patient's health records. By scanning a person's chip, caregivers would be in a position to argue?
can retrieve an identification code that enables them to access
At a practical level, when chips are implanted in guest laborers,
the medical history of people who cannot otherwise communi- who pays for the cost of purchasing, implanting, and monitoring
cate their identities-speeding up their treatment and possibly the chips in hundreds or thousands of poor migrants? If someone
saving their lives.
has an adverse reaction to the chip so that it has to be removed or
VeriChip Corp., a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions, replaced, who bears that cost? And who pays if the chips become
headquartered in Delray, Fla., is also promoting its device as obsolete or compromised by rampant cloning-the illicit duplicaa security measure. It has six clients around the world, five tion of the supposedly unique device-and have to be replaced?
of which use the implant as a secondary source of authentica- Affluent patrons of a trendy club might gladly pay to be chipped,

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum March, 2007