IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019 - 18

LEADING EDGE

Katina Michael

ndreas Sjöström,
vice president and
chief technology officer at Sogeti a n d
Capgemini Scandinavia, is convinced that microchip
implants are a "dead end." Microchip
implants are tiny integrated circuits
embedded in tags or transponders
that can be injected into the subdermal layer of the skin allowing for
non-Line-of-Sight (nLoS) communications with external reader devices [1]. Despite the enthusiasm
around near field communications
(NFC) implants, Sjöström is certain
research and investment in these
technologies will quickly fade due
to the simple fact that "an implant
doesn't add any value." Why should
we take Sjöström's opinion on
implants seriously? He has one
and he has taken it for a good test
drive [2].

A

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2019.2913066
Date of publication: 30 May 2019

Rebecca
Monteleone

Microchipping People
Is a "Bad Idea"
Interview with Andreas Sjöström
March 2018, Dr. Katina Michael,
professor at Arizona State University's School for the Future of Innovation in Society and School of
Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, had an
in-depth discussion with Sjöström
about his experiment, the future
of chipping, and ethics in innovation. This interview, abridged and
presented below, was conducted
in three parts: via a written questionnaire, during a question and
answer session at Engineers Australia in March 2018 [5], and a one-onone Skype interview. Questions and
responses have been abridged and

On January 6, 2016, Sjöström
made history by boarding a Scandinavian Airlines plane from Stockholm to Paris using an NFC chip
embedded in his hand in lieu of a
boarding pass [3] (Figure 1). While
Sjöström's experiment, in partnership with Scandinavian Airlines,
was ostensibly successful, it only
cemented his conviction that implantable NFC chips are not the
future of innovation. Instead, he
argues quite succinctly that NFC
chips are a solution in search of a
problem, have limited utility, are
less efficient than alternatives, and
pose significant health risks [4]. In

FIGURE 1. Andreas Sjöström passing through airport security using an NFC chip embedded in his hand in lieu of a boarding pass on

January 6, 2016.

18

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

∕

JUNE 2019



IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019

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