IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2017 - 6

EDITORIAL

Katina Michael

n Part 1 of "Go Get
C h ip p e d " we c ov ered the inception of
microchip implants
for non-medical ap plications from 1997 to 2012 [1].
This period demonstrated the
breadth of applications that implantables could be used for [2]. This was
a time of intense novelty, early hype,
a bit of magic for magic's sake, and
proposing a future that very few genuinely wished to engage with, save
for severe sufferers of Parkinson's
disease, Tourette Syndrome, major
depressive disorder (MDD), amputation, or quadriplegia [3]. Until then,

I

Go "Get Chipped"
A Brief Overview of Non-Medical
Implants between 2013-2017 (Part 2)

things were about to drastically
change when some big brands got
behind the broader concept of a
paperless and cashless society.
Well known to most of us in the
auto-ID industry were two IBM commercials produced in the mid-2000s
that showed off radiofrequency identification (RFID)
for "grab and go" shopping
at a smar t supermarket
[4], and increased visibility
It did not take long for the
in the supply chain [5]. In
fact, the "cutesy" nature of
discussion on microchipping of
these commercials were a
step away from the origihumans to zero in on the potential
nal "shock and awe" of the
for an "on-off" switch, located
Applied Digital Solutions
VeriChip "Get Chipped"
somewhere on the human body.
ca mpa ig ns that were a
response to national security (i.e., 9/11) and America's
healthcare crisis [6]. IBM
few academics, some keen biohackinstead evoked a "look how cool
ers, and radical start-ups had taken
and fun this new tech can be - join
the idea of "microchipping people
us" kind of sentiment with their very
for non-medical applications"(not
slick and somewhat mischievous
just dogs and cats) seriously, but
marketing approach.
In 2007, MG Michael delivered
an invited talk at Terra Incognita
in Montreal, Canada [7], where he
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2017.2762900
Date of publication: 5 December 2017
showed these IBM clips as part of

6

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

his uberveillance delivery, and the
response was quite unexpected.
At the conclusion of the meeting,
this presentation was highlighted
in the presence of the delegates as
one of the responses contra the top
heavy surveillance keynote that had
been delivered earlier in the week
by the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security Michael
Chertoff [8]. Some years prior, MG
had delivered a paper at the British Computer Society [9] where
Ken Wood of Microsoft Research
in Cambridge [10] and the current
CTO of CISCO Monique Morrow
were present [11]. It did not take long
on that occasion, for the discussion
on microchipping of humans to
zero in on the potential for an "onoff" switch for implantables located
somewhere in the human body, perhaps on the forearm. Soon after,
we had chance meetings, first at an
airport in India with a Nokia chief
who beckoned MG to become a
tech evangelist for them. There was
another in 2010 in our little hometown with a longstanding InQTel
employee who stated that what we
were working on was the future [12].
Business cards exchanged, what
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DECEMBER 2017
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2017
