Microchipping people - AIBU to find this all a bit worrying?

[Defenbaker]

Last year around 4,000 Swedish people were fitted with implants in their hands, and it seems that many companies around the world are considering implants for their employees. These chips could be used for ID, to unlock doors, or make payments, and may hold sensitive medical information. In theory anyone fitted with one of these chips could be tracked by their employer, or possibly by the government/police. I find it all rather terrifying, and can't imagine myself accepting an ID implant.

I can't believe this is actually happening, it all seems like something out of dystopian fiction. Is this going to become the new norm? I can think of a few advantages to this new implanted technology (tracing missing vulnerable people, medical info readily available to paramedics), but many disadvantages (lack of privacy/gradual coercion of the population/possibility for cyber hacking causing mental illness/AI taking the upper hand). In my mind the whole prospect is terrifying and a step too far. AIBU?

[GeorgeTheBleeder]

YANBU. I also find the roll-out of this technology utterly terrifying.

If it aids efficiency for employers or government bodies there is absolutely no reason why it would not become compulsory really, really quickly. Imagine that. Although we don’t need to imagine it - literature and films have done it already.

And once we are all forced to accept implants ‘for the good of society’ - those implants will be ‘enhanced’ to control our behaviour. Isn’t that already happening with measures to improve health? And, just as, currently, some sections of society enjoy greater freedom than others, the implants will be used more restrictively on some people than on others.

Those who are poor or poorly educated or considered a risk to good order will be compulsorily curfewed when they are not required to work. Only the higher echelons of society will retain any element of freedom to pursue their chosen leisure activities. Streets and schools and clubs will be entirely clear of troublemakers. Universities will never hear a dissenting voice. Governing the country will take half a day per week - and that only to progress the steady sale of the technology to right wing governments across the world.

So yes. There’s no reason at all not to be very worried indeed.

[SkydivingKittyCat]

I don't do anything remotely exciting enough for anyone to care about what I'm doing...

[PanteneProV]

I hate the idea too. Generally very pro technological innovation but I find this prospect deeply uncomfortable.

[Seedlip]

YANBU. Sounds like the beginnings of a plot for a Black Mirror episode.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I don't do anything remotely exciting enough for anyone to care about what I'm doing...

If you ever spend money, you're interesting.

[StiltonVanDeKamp]

YANBU. Sounds like the beginnings of a plot for a Black Mirror episode.

Exactly what I was thinking, and Black Mirror rarely ends well!

[RebootYourEngine]

I hate the idea of this. Who controls the data and could it be easily hacked or changed or controlled.

[GruciusMalfoy]

Has anyone else been watching Years and Years? Microchipping people is worrying to me.

[LoopyLou1981]

I honestly wouldn’t mind. I can see more benefits than negatives.
Child goes missing - find then using the chip
You’re injured/pass out/get lost - easy to find you using the chip
No lost passports/driving license/credit card - all immediately to hand (pun intended!)
I don’t have anything to hide and most of what the government could gain from a chip im guessing they can already monitor from my computer/phone/spending habits.

[Bezalelle]

I don't do anything remotely exciting enough for anyone to care about what I'm doing...

This is such a common misconception. Not least because EVERYTHING you do is used by advertisers to sell things to you. And that's just in a mostly benign political situation. Imagine a leader rising up who might use certain personal information against you.

[MangoBananaSleep]

I don’t have anything to hide - I’m the most boring person ever but pigs will fly before I agree to have a microchip inserted into me.

No. The potential for abuse is huge. A lot of companies can’t even keep our data safe so can you imagine what this would be like?

I’ve joked for years that we will be mocrochipping babies next. I’m horrified that we now seem to be heading in that direction.

[Oblomov19]

I find the Years and Years clip most disconcerting.

[StoorieHoose]

Considering the outcry in the UK over ID cards I don't think there is any threat of this happening soon. However lots of companies already track their employees through vehicle tracking

I can however see advantages of ID chips in dementia patients who are at risk of wandering.

[SolitudeAtAltitude]

It would be a huge violation of bodily autonomy, and existing human rights laws would have to be abolished before this is even an.option

...oh wait

Shit

[adaline]

I wish people wouldn't say things like "I don't do anything interesting so I don't mind".

Have you read the stories of places in China where people are taken away from their homes for having the wrong religious beliefs? And sent to re-education camps?

What makes you think you're so special and unique that it couldn't happen to you as well if a dictator rose up and took power?

Dictators can pick up on the most mundane things and use them to cause trouble. Going to the wrong pubs, shopping in the wrong places, not going to church enough - all things that could be used against you by the wrong people.

It scares me that people are okay with it. But then I really don't understand people buying gadgets like Alexa and using things like Siri either. They freak me out too!

[FishCanFly]

Sounds like load of horseshit. "Thousands of people in Sweden" - sure, so you know any of them? Has somebody personally come to you and told you about his microchip? Or you just read something online. Companies consider doing this - anybody working for "companies" can actually confirm? Replace keys and tickets - we're talking about while new technology that we will need to implement everywhere. Really?

[1CarefulLadyOwner]

Anyone with a mobile telephone or any kind of card with a chip is, effectively, already chipped just not physically.
I would just like to know who is collecting all the data and what it is being used for. Another reason I am glad I do not live in the UK.

[Whisky2014]

Link?

[Rickandportly]

Mark of the beast. “Won’t be able to buy and sell without the mark on the right hand” (I’m paraphrasing as I’m not religious so don’t really know the bible).

It is scary though.

[freshasthebrightbluesky]

Those people who say they have nothing to hide: would you share your bank details and spending habits with some random person on the street? Would you let your boss read your personal emails and text messages and look through all the pictures on your phone? Would you go to the toilet and leave the door wide open? Would you be happy with someone rifling through your handbag? If not, why not? After all, you've got nothing to hide...

[MyOpinionIsValid]

@FishCanFly

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-workers-microchip-implant-cash-card-id-pass-replace-employee-hand-epicenter-rice-grain-size-a7670551.html

[MyOpinionIsValid]

@RickandPortly

Revelation 13:16-18
16It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
18This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.

[DinkyTie]

I'm ok with being tracked by my phone if that is what "they" are doing, I can leave me phone, turn it off if I want.

A microchip? Absolutely not!

[soccerbabe]

www.npr.org/2018/10/22/658808705/thousands-of-swedes-are-inserting-microchips-under-their-skin

[Rickandportly]

@MyOpinionIsValid

That’s it.

A modern interpretation is that the mark of the beast will be an RFID chip inserted into the hand or the head.