RFID Technology: Americans Don't Want to Be Chipped

Applied Digital Solutions made headlines when it got FDA approval to sell its VeriChip in the United States in 2002.  By the end of 2006, however, ADS still had not made much progress in marketing its implantable microchip to the general public.  Not many people, it turns out, are excited about getting "chipped" - and not many doctors are interested in offering the chip to patients.

In a simply out-patient procedure, the rice-sized computer chip can be injected under the skin in the arm, allowing the bearer to be easily identified by a hand-held scanner - much like food is scanned at the grocery store. In a completely practical sense, VeriChip offers an array of useful benefits.  It can be used to identify lost children or Alzheimer's patients.  If an unconscious person is rushed to the hospital, VeriChip would tell doctors which medications he or she is on and whether the patient has any allergies. Disaster victims would be easier to identify if VeriChip marking became popular.  The possibilities are many.

Obvious privacy concerns, however, and fears that VeriChip is a precursor to the Mark of the Beast, have kept the chip from taking off.  If mass groups of people decided to get chipped, scanners set up around the country could conceivably allow individuals to be tracked wherever they went.  People might want to be positively identified in an emergency, but they do not want the government to know their whereabouts at all times.  As of the end of 2006, only 222 medical patients in the United States had been implanted with the chip.  Latin American countries have been more open to the new technology, which has been used to curb the kidnapping problem in Mexico.

If you do not want a chip implanted in you, though, how about a tattoo?  A new RFID technology has eliminated the "chip" aspect, but kept the digital identification aspect. Somark Innovations has announced that it has successfully tested an RFID ink that can be "tattooed" into the skin for absolute identification.  There are already useful applications for this ink (either invisible or colored)  - cattle farmers hope to use the tattoo ID to keep track of cattle, discourage cattle theft, and more easily identify which animals have been exposed to mad cow disease.

"It can say where it has been, who it has talked to, who it has eaten with, and who else it has been in contact with," said Somark co-founder, Co-founder Mark Pydynowski.

Pydynowski also believes the tattoo would also be helpful in the military, to protect soldier's lives.

Right now, Americans fear the civil liberties abuses made possible by injecting human beings with RFID technology.  Companies like Applied Digital Solutions and Somark, however, will work hard to convince the American public that the benefits of RFID-for-humans far outweigh the potential dangers.  Natural disasters, security, prison safety, terrorism, illegal immigration, lost children or lost grandmothers could all give people reasons for putting away their well-founded fears of being injected with RFID technology, and open the door to greater invasion and control of our private lives.  We'll see where this goes during the next few years.