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?

@MyOpinionIsValid my grandfather used to always talk about the mark of the beast. I've not heard it mentioned in a long time but this was exactly what I thought of when.

It's a no from me.

My location is tracked on my phone but I can leave it at home if I choose. My purchases and whereabouts are tracked on my debit and credit cards, but I can take a lump of cash out of the bank and not use cards to pay for things.

There is no getting away from a microchip which is in you. And whatever contracts and controls are in place around security of your data and what is done with it, can be changed.

On the surface I can see the advantages but people like Hitler rose to power and could have used data like this to exterminate a race of people.

Those who feel people like Hitler are firmly in the past just have to look at the U.S.A. today. Imagine if that madman Trump had access to our personal information.............
People voted for him!!!!!!!!!!!

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

Well, lovely for you if don't have the kind of job where your boss cares how long you spend on a toilet break. But that's the kind of thing a chip implant could monitor perfectly.

It doesn't have to be exciting to be intrusive.

You could view it as comforting rather than terrifying. Crime would become almost impossible, vulnerable people (children too) could be located and rescued instantly. The security services can track you now should they wish to. They can hack your phones, computers, mail. They can follow you, trace your movements on CCTV.

If there wasn't CCTV and anpr I would speed occasionally and I would keep unidentifiable money if I happened across it.

Ferret non activity is an investigative tool too. Leaving your phone at home or switching it off is a change in behaviour. When a person is at home with their phone they tend to fiddle with it now and then. Zero activity is also suspicious. Taking out a lump of cash is also noteworthy.

Do you carry a mobile phone OP? If you do, you're already being tracked, everywhere. And everything you do online on phone or pc is tracked. Every time you take money from an ATM, use your card to pay for something, a log is being made of where you are.
If you drive, you're being caught on cctv. Same if you walk round a town or city centre.
If you leave the country, you leave a log.

"THEY" already know everything about you. A chip would just bring all of that info into one place.

I resisted having a smartphone for a really long time but life became difficult as so many other people had it.

Thigh I know. And if someone wanted to find me then they would (the C4 series 'Hunted' is an excellent illustration of this!).

But in a world where I'm a boring and average person, who suddenly decides that I want a bit more privacy, then leaving the phone and using cash is an easy way of doing it. If I have a RFID chip in me then I can't decide on a whim that I don't want to be monitored, without having to go and have it removed.

It's the permanence of the process that concerns me. There's no decision making involved - do I take my phone today? Do I pay cash or card? It's in you, regardless of how you feel that day. And you can bet that if you decide you want to have it removed that your employer would want to know why. Would you have to pay? Is there a waiting list? It's not as easy as simply choosing whether to pick up a phone or a debit card in the morning.

The world would be a safer place if we were microchipped. At the very least, we should have I.D cards

@DinkyTie my mum used to talk about it too. I’m not religious but this made me think of it.

I'd prefer a chip to biometrics.

After all, if the thing that is used is your fingerprint or iris, there's no way that can be changed if your 'account' is hacked/misused.

But most people seem to think using their fingerprints (or their DC's fingerprints in schools) is just fine and the shape of things to come.

How many of you have read the privacy policy for MN? Probably none of you. Most people leech data without even knowing it. Most of which is not secretly taken but forced into the public (social media inc MN).

Besides, RFID doesn’t have GPS so couldn’t track you like your phone which most people have glued to them. Also, if you don’t want an RFID chip in your hand to work, wear a glove!

I would be happy for all criminals to be chipped.

All parents who claim they do not work enough to contribute financially to the DC they no longer live with be chipped (so cash in hand jobs etc can be traced).

All politicians to be chipped (it might discourage the dishonest ones from entering that profession).

All men seen entering & exiting a brothel to be chipped.

All drunk drivers to be chipped (& any future irratic driving be automatically flagged up).

I'm sure their are other uses too.

I live in London and occasionally think about murder and body disposal. Obviously it's the River but I couldn't get there from my house without being tracked. This has saved lives.

And they said VIKI, Skynet, HAL, Proteus IV, Central Computer, etc, were just in the movies....

Things that non criminals want privacy for - having an affair for instance or going dogging, are of no interest to the security services. Hmm, unless they want to coerce you.

It's about who owns and controls the data. Security services and police I'm ok with, businesses no. DWP no.

Anyone who says ‘I’ve got nothing to hide’ is being naive in the extreme. Governments around the world which once ‘allowed’ abortion, homosexuality and sex outside of marriage have now criminalised those acts. Who could have imagined, ten years ago, that wondering whether a man who puts on a dress is really a woman could see you being arrested in the UK? Your views, habits and preferences may be fine now but they may be considered criminal in the very near future. We should resist the loss of privacy rather than passively wandering towards it because it seems convenient.

It would be very convenient if wherever I went, my passport, house-key, work pass and wallet were automatically with me, and couldn't be mislaid.

Child goes missing - find then using the chip

Would it have GPS?

I don’t have an issue with it at all.

Already a company in the U.K. that do it. "BioTeq are the UK's leading human technology implant specialists." www.bioteq.co.uk/.

FFS Hoofer Minority Report etc. they're books not instruction manuals.

Where has this idea of tracking people come from? The implants are passive RFID and need to be close (less than a meter) to a RFID reader to get data from them. So unless you’re in/next to a building with a reader you can’t be tracked.

If it became the norm for people to be chipped, I would be worried about criminals hacking into people to remove their chips to steal their money, identity etc.

All those dodgy doctors in films who patch up gunshot victims so they don't have to go to a hospital who would call the police would start swapping chips between their associates and innocent members of the public. Or remove them from kidnap victims, etc etc.