Friday, February 25, 2005
VeriChip
Filed under: Informatics
DC's very own WUSA Channel 9 reports about the FDA-approved VeriChip:
Just like the barcode on a can of tomatoes, reduced to a number in a fraction of a second and linked to a computer database, people are voluntarily being bar-coded.The number is stored within a tiny glass chip that's the size of a grain of rice and surgically implanted just under the skin.
What it is, is a VeriChip, a radio-frequency i.d tag by a company called Applied Digital. The chip is loaded with whatever personal information you choose.
That can include your Social Security number, insurance, health information or even name and address.
A special reader has to be within a few inches to access your 16 digit number. To access your computer file, a password is needed.
Its original intent was for medical emergencies. In fact the company is about to give chip readers to 200 Emergency Rooms in America for free.
But Verichips could someday be implanted in our military with information, like next of kin.
Top secret government officials could use them to gain access to offices or files, or to anyone required to give i.d verification for financial reasons.
Humans can be tracked just like your dog or cat. The first id chips were put in pets. Today 70,000 shelters and veterinarians in American can scan a lost or injured animal and find the owner, in seconds.
In fact, Verichip has yet to land its first domestic account.
VeriChip, of course, is a similar RFID technology that is in the Surgichip (which is noninvasive), covered earlier here and here. Competition for human bar-coding is heating up, without any visible enthusiasm among the general public to be tagged (at least invasively tagged).
Our bet: invasive RFIDing will only be done for death row inmates (if at all...), and otherwise will not be accepted by the general public. Would you want to be invasively RFID'ed?
More at VeriChip...
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