CityWatcher.com, a provider of surveillance
equipment, attracted little notice itself - until a year ago, when
two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with
miniature antennas embedded in their forearms.
The "chipping" of two workers with RFIDs - radio frequency
identification tags as long as two grains of rice, as thick as a
toothpick - was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that
held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of
security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said.
"To protect high-end secure data, you use more sophisticated
techniques," Sean Darks, chief executive of the Cincinnati-based
company, said. He compared chip implants to retina scans or
fingerprinting. "There's a reader outside the door; you walk up to
the reader, put your arm under it, and it opens the door."
Innocuous? Maybe.
But the news that Americans had, for the first time, been
injected with electronic identifiers to perform their jobs fired up
a debate over the proliferation of ever-more-precise tracking
technologies and their ability to erode privacy in the digital age.
To some, the microchip was a wondrous invention - a high-tech
helper that could increase security at nuclear plants and military
bases, help authorities identify wandering Alzheimer's patients,
allow consumers to buy their groceries, literally, with the wave of
a chipped hand.
To others, the notion of tagging people was Orwellian, a
departure from centuries of history and tradition in which people
had the right to go and do as they pleased, without being tracked,
unless they were harming someone else.
Chipping, these critics said, might start with Alzheimer's
patients or Army Rangers, but would eventually be suggested for
convicts, then parolees, then sex offenders, then illegal aliens -
until one day, a majority of Americans, falling into one category or
another, would find themselves electronically tagged.
The concept of making all things traceable isn't alien to
Americans. Thirty years ago, the first electronic tags were fixed to
the ears of cattle, to permit ranchers to track a herd's
reproductive and eating habits. In the 1990s, millions of chips were
implanted in livestock, fish, dogs, cats, even racehorses.
Microchips are now fixed to car windshields as toll-paying
devices, on "contactless" payment cards (Chase's "Blink," or
MasterCard's "PayPass"). They're embedded in Michelin tires, library
books, passports, work uniforms, luggage, and, unbeknownst to many
consumers, on a host of individual items, from Hewlett Packard
printers to Sanyo TVs, at Wal-Mart and Best Buy.
But CityWatcher.com employees weren't appliances or pets: They
were people made scannable.
"It was scary that a government contractor that specialized in
putting surveillance cameras on city streets was the first to
incorporate this technology in the workplace," says Liz McIntyre,
co-author of "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan
to Track Your Every Move with RFID."
Darks, the CityWatcher.com executive, dismissed his critics,
noting that he and his employees had volunteered to be
chip-injected. Any suggestion that a sinister, Big-Brother-like
campaign was afoot, he said, was hogwash.
"You would think that we were going around putting chips in
people by force," he told a reporter, "and that's not the case at
all."
Yet, within days of the company's announcement, civil
libertarians and Christian conservatives joined to excoriate the
microchip's implantation in people.
RFID, they warned, would soon enable the government to "frisk"
citizens electronically - an invisible, undetectable search
performed by readers posted at "hotspots" along roadsides and in
pedestrian areas. It might even be used to squeal on employees while
they worked; time spent at the water cooler, in the bathroom, in a
designated smoking area could one day be broadcast, recorded and
compiled in off-limits, company databases.
"Ultimately," says Katherine Albrecht, a privacy advocate who
specializes in consumer education and RFID technology, "the fear is
that the government or your employer might someday say, 'Take a chip
or starve.'"
Some Christian critics saw the implants as the fulfillment of a
biblical prophecy that describes an age of evil in which humans are
forced to take the "Mark of the Beast" on their bodies, to buy or
sell anything.
Gary Wohlscheid, president of These Last Days Ministries, a Roman
Catholic group in Lowell, Mich., put together a Web site that linked
the implantable microchips to the apocalyptic prophecy in the book
of Revelation.
"The Bible tells us that God's wrath will come to those who take
the Mark of the Beast," he says. Those who refuse to accept the
Satanic chip "will be saved," Wohlscheid offers in a comforting
tone.
---
In post-9/11 America, electronic surveillance comes in myriad
forms: in a gas station's video camera; in a cell phone tucked
inside a teen's back pocket; in a radio tag attached to a
supermarket shopping cart; in a Porsche automobile equipped with a
LoJack anti-theft device.
"We're really on the verge of creating a surveillance society in
America, where every movement, every action - some would even claim,
our very thoughts - will be tracked, monitored, recorded and
correlated," says Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and
Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington,
D.C.
RFID, in Steinhardt's opinion, "could play a pivotal role in
creating that surveillance society."
In design, the tag is simple: A medical-grade glass capsule holds
a silicon computer chip, a copper antenna and a "capacitor" that
transmits data stored on the chip when prompted by an
electromagnetic reader.
Implantations are quick, relatively simple procedures. After a
local anesthetic is administered, a large-gauge hypodermic needle
injects the chip under the skin on the back of the arm, midway
between the elbow and the shoulder.
"It feels just like getting a vaccine - a bit of pressure, no
specific pain," says John Halamka, an emergency physician at Beth
Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
He got chipped two years ago, "so that if I was ever in an
accident, and arrived unconscious or incoherent at an emergency
ward, doctors could identify me and access my medical history
quickly." (A chipped person's medical profile can be continuously
updated, since the information is stored on a database accessed via
the Internet.)
Halamka thinks of his microchip as another technology with
practical value, like his BlackBerry. But it's also clear, he says,
that there are consequences to having an implanted identifier.
"My friends have commented to me that I'm 'marked' for life, that
I've lost my anonymity. And to be honest, I think they're right."
Indeed, as microchip proponents and detractors readily agree,
Americans' mistrust of microchips and technologies like RFID runs
deep. Many wonder:
Do the current chips have global positioning transceivers that
would allow the government to pinpoint a person's exact location,
24-7? (No; the technology doesn't yet exist.)
But could a tech-savvy stalker rig scanners to video cameras and
film somebody each time they entered or left the house? (Quite
easily, though not cheaply. Currently, readers cost $300 and up.)
How about thieves? Could they make their own readers, aim them at
unsuspecting individuals, and surreptitiously pluck people's IDs out
of their arms? (Yes. There's even a name for it - "spoofing.")
What's the average lifespan of a microchip? (About 10-15 years.)
What if you get tired of it before then - can it be easily,
painlessly removed? (Short answer: No.)
Presently, Steinhardt and other privacy advocates view the
tagging of identity documents - passports, drivers licenses and the
like - as a more pressing threat to Americans' privacy than the
chipping of people. Equipping hospitals, doctors' offices, police
stations and government agencies with readers will be costly,
training staff will take time, and, he says, "people are going to be
too squeamish about having an RFID chip inserted into their arms, or
wherever."
But that wasn't the case in March 2004, when the Baja Beach Club
in Barcelona, Spain - a nightclub catering to the body-aware,
under-25 crowd - began holding "Implant Nights."
In a white lab coat, with hypodermic in latex-gloved hand, a
company chipper wandered through the throng of the clubbers and
clubbettes, anesthetizing the arms of consenting party goers, then
injecting them with microchips.
The payoff?
Injectees would thereafter be able to breeze past bouncers and
entrance lines, magically open doors to VIP lounges, and pay for
drinks without cash or credit cards. The ID number on the VIP chip
was linked to the user's financial accounts and stored in the club's
computers.
After being chipped himself, club owner Conrad K. Chase declared
that chip implants were hardly a big deal to his patrons, since
"almost everybody has piercings, tattoos or silicone."
VIP chipping soon spread to the Baja Beach Club in Rotterdam,
Holland, the Bar Soba in Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Amika
nightclub in Miami Beach, Fla.
That same year, Mexico's attorney general, Rafael Macedo, made an
announcement that thrilled chip proponents and chilled privacy
advocates: He and 18 members of his staff had been microchipped as a
way to limit access to a sensitive records room, whose door unlocked
when a "portal reader" scanned the chips.
But did this make Mexican security airtight?
Hardly, says Jonathan Westhues, an independent security
researcher in Cambridge, Mass. He concocted an "emulator," a
hand-held device that cloned the implantable microchip
electronically. With a team of computer-security experts, he
demonstrated - on television - how easy it was to snag data off a
chip.
Explains Adam Stubblefield, a Johns Hopkins researcher who joined
the team: "You pass within a foot of a chipped person, copy the
chip's code, then with a push of the button, replay the same ID
number to any reader. You essentially assume the person's identity."
The company that makes implantable microchips for humans,
VeriChip Corp. (CHIP),
of Delray Beach, Fla., concedes the point - even as it markets its
radio tag and its portal scanner as imperatives for high-security
buildings, such as nuclear power plants.
"To grab information from radio frequency products with a
scanning device is not hard to do," Scott Silverman, the company's
chief executive, says. However, "the chip itself only contains a
unique, 16-digit identification number. The relevant information is
stored on a database."
Even so, he insists, it's harder to clone a VeriChip than it
would be to steal someone's key card and use it to enter secure
areas.
VeriChip Corp., whose parent company has been selling radio tags
for animals for more than a decade, has sold 7,000 microchips
worldwide, of which about 2,000 have been implanted in humans. More
than one-tenth of those have been in the U.S., generating "nominal
revenues," the company acknowledged in a Securities and Exchange
Commission filing in February.
Although in five years VeriChip Corp. has yet to turn a profit,
it has been investing heavily - up to $2 million a quarter - to
create new markets.
The company's present push: tagging of "high-risk" patients -
diabetics and people with heart conditions or Alzheimer's disease.
In an emergency, hospital staff could wave a reader over a
patient's arm, get an ID number, and then, via the Internet, enter a
company database and pull up the person's identity and medical
history.
To doctors, a "starter kit" - complete with 10 hypodermic
syringes, 10 VeriChips and a reader - costs $1,400. To patients, a
microchip implant means a $200, out-of-pocket expense to their
physician. Presently, chip implants aren't covered by insurance
companies, Medicare or Medicaid.
For almost two years, the company has been offering hospitals
free scanners, but acceptance has been limited. According to the
company's most recent SEC quarterly filing, 515 hospitals have
pledged to take part in the VeriMed network, yet only 100 have
actually been equipped and trained to use the system.
Some wonder why they should abandon noninvasive tags such as
MedicAlert, a low-tech bracelet that warns paramedics if patients
have serious allergies or a chronic medical condition.
"Having these things under your skin instead of in your back
pocket - it's just not clear to me why it's worth the
inconvenience," says Westhues.
Silverman responds that an implanted chip is "guaranteed to be
with you. It's not a medical arm bracelet that you can take off if
you don't like the way it looks..."
In fact, microchips can be removed from the body - but it's not
like removing a splinter.
The capsules can migrate around the body or bury themselves deep
in the arm. When that happens, a sensor X-ray and monitors are
needed to locate the chip, and a plastic surgeon must cut away scar
tissue that forms around the chip.
The relative permanence is a big reason why Marc Rotenberg, of
the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is suspicious about the
motives of the company, which charges an annual fee to keep clients'
records.
The company charges $20 a year for customers to keep a
"one-pager" on its database - a record of blood type, allergies,
medications, driver's license data and living-will directives. For
$80 a year, it will keep an individual's full medical history.
---
In recent times, there have been rumors on Wall Street, and
elsewhere, of the potential uses for RFID in humans: the chipping of
U.S. soldiers, of inmates, or of migrant workers, to name a few.
To date, none of this has happened.
But a large-scale chipping plan that was proposed illustrates the
stakes, pro and con.
In mid-May, a protest outside the Alzheimer's Community Care
Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., drew attention to a two-year study
in which 200 Alzheimer's patients, along with their caregivers, were
to receive chip implants. Parents, children and elderly people
decried the plan, with signs and placards.
"Chipping People Is Wrong" and "People Are Not Pets," the signs
read. And: "Stop VeriChip."
Ironically, the media attention sent VeriChip's stock soaring 27
percent in one day.
"VeriChip offers technology that is absolutely bursting with
potential," wrote blogger Gary E. Sattler, of the AOL site
Bloggingstocks, even as he recognized privacy concerns.
Albrecht, the RFID critic who organized the demonstration, raises
similar concerns on her AntiChips.com Web site.
"Is it appropriate to use the most vulnerable members of society
for invasive medical research? Should the company be allowed to
implant microchips into people whose mental impairments mean they
cannot give fully informed consent?"
Mary Barnes, the care center's chief executive, counters that
both the patients and their legal guardians must consent to the
implants before receiving them. And the chips, she says, could be
invaluable in identifying lost patients - for instance, if a
hurricane strikes Florida.
That, of course, assumes that the Internet would be accessible in
a killer storm. VeriChip Corp. acknowledged in an SEC filing that
its "database may not function properly" in such circumstances.
As the polemic heats up, legislators are increasingly being drawn
into the fray. Two states, Wisconsin and North Dakota, recently
passed laws prohibiting the forced implantation of microchips in
humans. Others - Ohio, Oklahoma, Colorado and Florida - are studying
similar legislation.
In May, Oklahoma legislators were debating a bill that would have
authorized microchip implants in people imprisoned for violent
crimes. Many felt it would be a good way to monitor felons once
released from prison.
But other lawmakers raised concerns. Rep. John Wright worried,
"Apparently, we're going to permanently put the mark on these
people."
Rep. Ed Cannaday found the forced microchipping of inmates
"invasive ... We are going down that slippery slope."
In the end, lawmakers
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sent
the bill back to committee for more work.
