October 02, 2006
I Am Not A Number - Battery-Powered, RFID-Implanted Human?
In the Sep/Oct 2006 print issue of RFID Journal, Kevin Ashton, co-founder of the Auto-ID Center and author of an upcoming RFID book, has a fascinating "final word" article called The Fear Factor. It reveals some suprising information that I was unaware of, regarding the implanting of RFID chips into humans. For example, Scott McNealy, former CEO of the giant Sun Microsystems (probably best known for their computers and their Java programming language, which powers 3.5 billion devices worldwide), once apparently said something to the effect that after a baby is born, their bottom should be slapped and an RFID chip implanted in their neck/ shoulders, and that that was not Big Brother, just Dad.
Wow. I don't even know how to respond to this. Gloat? See, I told you so? Satisfaction? Well, this is just proof that there are people who want to do this despicable act, using radio frequency technology in ways it wasn't intended. (Other than Scott Silverman, CEO of VeriChip Corp's parent company.)
Granted, there are already people who have been microchipped, most willingly or even voluntarily. But Ashton's article says that RFID embedded in flesh will have a short read range, and will not even providing the tracking ability that McNealy and others are talking about. Unless active RFID tags are used, but they would require battery changes every few years. Imagine that, he says, having to be cut open to have batteries replaced.
Now what kind of a cyborg would you be if that was the case? But seriously, as I'm sure I've said even 15+ years ago, when I only knew a very little about RFID, imbedding chips into our bodies is not going to stop kidnapping. Which is what Ashton says as well. But most interesting of all is his premise that maybe human beings have a primal fear of surveillance. If that's true, then it just may be why there is such resistance to VeriChip and similar "implant us all" ideas. Let's just hope that resistance is not futile.
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