From an
interview:
BRIAN KILMEADE, co-anchor: Here to tell us right now why this is a viable solution that might be used very shortly, Scott Silverman, CEO and Chairman of Applied Digital. Scott, where is this being used right now?
Mr. SCOTT SILVERMAN (Chairman & CEO, Applied Digital): Well, this chip today is being used for medical applications, to identify high-risk medical patients and their medical records in an emergency and clinical situation. The chip itself was approved by the FDA several years ago as a class-two medical device, specifically for that application. But obviously, it can be applicable for the immigration issues we face today as well.
KIRAN CHETRY, co-anchor: And we're going to take a look at it right now. You have the little chip, and it's next to a penny, so we can see just how small that chip would be. And you have one in you, so let's go ahead and just sort of explain how it would happen.
No, it's not another generic
RFID is bad! rant.
A quick overview of how RFID tags work.
- They're usually very small, the largest on the order of a grain of rice.
- They contain a small chip, encoded with some bit of data (usually a unique number)
- There's an antenna.
- A "RFID" reader sends out a signal that, when close to the chip, provides power to the chip, which in turns, broadcasts its number.
It's fairly simple technology. The idea has been around for a while. See the ID badges the really cool corporations have for entering the building -- you know the ones where you wave a credit-card-sized photo badge (with a horrific, wide-eyed picture of yourself on the front) at a little black box on the wall near a door and the door unlocks? Exact same idea. RFID is just smaller, and less door-unlocking.
Here's the scary part, though. An article over at LiveScience, from whom I shamelessly ripped off the above image, details out how the company VeriChips wants to put them in "Guest Workers".
Now, I'm no brilliant privacy advocate, and I don't hate brown people for no good reason, but overall, this seems like a bad idea. The part of me that loves to jump up and down, waving its arms shouting, "Doubleplusgood!" is just standing there, with it's mouth open. While these devices would allow for easy tracking of individuals as they cross the border, it's the same slippery slope that you get when providing people with a social security number as a unique identification number. There's just too much that can be done on a quasi-legal basis with the information that, especially in terms of an RFID chip (which can be read from anywhere of "a few inches" to "a foot or more" away from the chip, depending on the strength of the signal doing the reading) you've no real consent in providing each time it is used. And we all know that the current administration can be trusted with private information.
Excuse me for a moment while I fold a beautiful swan out of tin-foil and place it on my head. Swans, as you know, are best at blocking the government mind-reading sattelites.
Such a system could easily be used to track these people not just when they enter and exit our country, but while they are here. Your local social sevices offices could install covert readers in the counters and refuse service to those obviously not US citizens. It's not a stretch to imagine high-powered readers installed along popular "illegal" routes into this country, setting off alarms, or even employers coordinating to make sure that a worker is not playing hookie or slacking off in the break room for too long.
And, really, if we start chipping (as the lingo goes when you put one in your pet) brown people, what about "regular" US citizens? What about, as slashdot mentions, pedophiles released from prison? Want to keep track of all those subversive gays and lesbians, out there plotting to destroy your marriage? Now it's easier than ever, and you don't have to wonder if that dude with the spikey hair and nose piercing is just bi or really digs the weiner.
Let me put the tin-foil hat off for a moment and comment that chipping people is the modern-day version of branding, albeit, far less painful.