Microchip implant (human)
Examples include an identifying integrated circuit RFID device encased in silicate glass which is implanted in the body of a human being.
Once scanned at the proper frequency, the chip responded with a unique 16-digit number which could be then linked with information about the user held on a database for identity verification, medical records access and other uses.
[49][50] Privacy advocates raised concerns regarding potential abuse of the chip, with some warning that adoption by governments as a compulsory identification program could lead to erosion of civil liberties, as well as identity theft if the device should be hacked.
[56] In January 2012, PositiveID sold the chip assets to a company called VeriTeQ that was owned by Scott Silverman, the former CEO of Positive ID.
[66] In February 2006, CityWatcher, Inc. of Cincinnati, OH became the first company in the world to implant microchips into their employees as part of their building access control and security system.
A major drawback for such systems is the relative ease with which the 16-digit ID number contained in a chip implant can be obtained and cloned using a hand-held device, a problem that has been demonstrated publicly by security researcher Jonathan Westhues[68] and documented in the May 2006 issue of Wired magazine,[69] among other places.
In 2017, Mike Miller, chief executive of the World Olympians Association, was widely reported as suggesting the use of such implants in athletes in an attempt to reduce problems in sports due to recreational drug use.
However, if widely deployed at some future point, implantable GPS devices could conceivably allow authorities to locate missing people, fugitives, or those who fled a crime scene.
[77] No conclusive investigation has been done on the risks of each type of implant near MRIs, other than anecdotal reports ranging from no problems, requiring hand shielding before proximity, to being denied the MRI.
Small failures however can take much longer to become obvious, resulting in a slow degradation of field strength without many external signs that something is slowly going wrong with the magnet.
[78] In a self-published report,[79] anti-RFID advocate Katherine Albrecht, who refers to RFID devices as "spy chips", cites veterinary and toxicological studies carried out from 1996 to 2006 which found lab rodents injected with microchips as an incidental part of unrelated experiments and dogs implanted with identification microchips sometimes developed cancerous tumors at the injection site (subcutaneous sarcomas) as evidence of a human implantation risk.
[80] However, the link between foreign-body tumorigenesis in lab animals and implantation in humans has been publicly refuted as erroneous and misleading[81] and the report's author has been criticized [by whom?]
While the issue is considered worthy of further investigation, one of the studies cited cautioned "Blind leaps from the detection of tumors to the prediction of human health risk should be avoided".
[88] Opponents have stated that such invasive technology has the potential to be used by governments to create an 'Orwellian' digital dystopia and theorized that in such a world, self-determination, the ability to think freely, and all personal autonomy could be completely lost.
[89][90][91] In 2019, Elon Musk announced that a company he had founded which deals with microchip implant research, called Neuralink, would be able to "solve" autism and other "brain diseases".
[94] Fellow Insider writer Isobel Asher Hamilton added, "it was not clear what Musk meant by saying Neuralink could "solve" autism, which is not a disease but a developmental disorder."
In fact, there’s some ethical debate in the medical community over whether autism, which is considered a disorder, should be treated as part of a person’s identity and not a ‘condition’ to be fixed... how freaking cool would it be to actually start your Tesla [electric vehicle] just by thinking?
Grant noted that Musk himself had recently admitted that he had been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome (itself an outdated diagnosis, the characteristics of which are currently recognized as part of the autism spectrum[98]) while hosting Saturday Night Live.
[100] The same year NPR reported that a myth was circulating online that patients who signed up to receive treatment under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) would be implanted.
[101] In 2016, Snopes reported that being injected with microchips was a "perennial concern to the conspiracy-minded" and noted that a conspiracy theory was circulating in Australia at that time that the government was going to implant all of its citizens.
[111] In 2010, Washington's House of Representatives introduced a bill ordering the study of potential monitoring of sex offenders with implanted RFID or similar technology, but it did not pass.
Some Christians make a link between implants and the Biblical Mark of the Beast,[113][114] prophesied to be a future requirement for buying and selling, and a key element of the Book of Revelation.
