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?

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.

But tracking you in and out of the toilets at work, easy peasy. Tracking down vulnerable people, not so easy. (Though you do know people have the right to disappear, lacking capacity or being a criminal may remove that right but being "vulnerable" does not?)

And then why wouldn't you need to wave your chip to access a bank or a cash point or to buy something in a shop or get on a train? Once lots of people have chips it's the logical next step the same way people are saying your smartphone already tracks you so who cares about an implant.

Professional criminal gangs will have all the tech they need to phreak the system. Including swapping chips and faking chips. The rest of us can be monitored to make sure we take our library books back on time and don't protest too much.

I used to love and admire Sweden, worked there for 6 months a couple of years ago...Good grief the country is turning in to a mess!! Not shocked that they are walking in to an Orwellian nightmare.

Hang on. It's people who have willingly gone for a chip because they are curious or like the idea of it. Its not the government tracking them

It’s the mark of the beast.

The end times are coming.

But that's just the start of it. Imagine the next steps... plenty of sci fi writers have been doing it for yers, much of the pupl sci fi from the 19th century on has been remarkably accurate (if completely wrong in terminology).

Asimov said it best, a few times:

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

Samphire I think that's a very apt quote these days when the length of life is prolonged without quality of life being paramount.

I'd volunteer for this, it'd stop me losing bank cards, work ID, passport, driving licence, if they can make it open my front door I could go out without anything, bonus.

So apart from what you've all said it could be used to monitor things like what you're eating and how much exercise you've taken. If that's not within guidelines (whatever they might be) you might be denied healthcare. If you didn't watch your compulsory 10 hours government information this week won't get paid. Etc etc,
The dangers of this technology have nothing to do with how "interesting " your life is.

So, from the many responses it's clear I'm not alone in being worried.

It's true that in a sense we're already being tracked and monitored now, through CCTV and technology that monitors our activity online, or the use of our bank cards. But when you have an implant embedded into your hand it could go to a whole new level, and if the implant becomes faulty or causes a nasty physical reaction, you'd need an operation to remove it. Once removed would it be possible to go back to the other forms of ID, or would you simply be off the system completely, unable to buy anything, access the internet or travel anywhere?

In Sweden it's all done on a voluntary basis - for now. I don't think those volunteers have thought it through properly. I wonder if they were paid something to take part, by way of an incentive?

Years and Years is a great series and is part of the reason for me pondering on this subject.

Thigh He is one of those writers that seems to be as relevant today as he was way back then. Ye gods... he was born 99 years ago!!!

His hard/social sci fi is scarily relevant to today!

Popcorn It depends on how much you trust givernments and big corporations. So, various, very recent social media fuck ups would lead me to believe that the 'paranoia' around chipping is not baseless.

Thrre's a good example in the news today: just imagine how China could use it on its population!

Defenbaker off topic... misspelt prime minister or dog?

I normally love tech but this worries me too

I can't believe anyone volunteered! They must have a lot of faith in government, corporations etc.

if we reach the day that a chip in a person becomes normal, I'm gone - and thank goodness I don't have children.

@ZippyB&G - yes, the convenience is the way they will sell the idea to people, who will think they never need worry again about losing keys, bank card etc. Some people take the easy route and don't question it, which is why this could catch on quite quickly. People who decline the new implants may find that life suddenly gets a lot harder for them, as big businesses and government adopt a "carrot and stick approach" to get everyone on board. Then it could become the norm, and people might be treated as misfits/anti social for refusing to comply.

@CuriousaboutSamphire - my user name refers to the deaf wolf in Due South, a series I love. I think it is Alaskan/Scandinavian in origin but I'm not sure.

Whisky2014

Hang on. It's people who have willingly gone for a chip because they are curious or like the idea of it. Its not the government tracking them

Yes, but thigh said that she only got a mobile cos everyone else had one. That's why I got one too. So if people start to get chipped...

It's people who have willingly gone for a chip because they are curious or like the idea of it. Its not the government tracking them

Yet. They are willingly making themselves permanently trackable. They are the normalisers, the ones that governments and commercial interests point to later saying "see, people volunteer to do this, it's all fine".

It's not a whole new level. It's more like a gradual erosion, step by step by step.

I thought it might been Def I loved that series... Paul Haggis...

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

So once they've come for the exciting people, who will stand up for you?

I don’t have anything to hide

Again - protest the principle, not whether you feel it personally affects you!

Or should we not support famine relief because we are not hungry? Gay rights because we are straight? Womens' refuges because no one is threatening us?

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

I thought the same thing.

To be honest, theres pros and cons. For every negative there's a positive.
It could prove people are innocent in crimes for example.
I actually doubt this would ever be a mandatory thing the government would implement in the UK. Human rights activists just would not allow it if it was going to be enforced to us. I do think people should think carefully before just going ahead and doing it. The same as people giving their DNA to the likes of ancestry organisations...to me, that is very dangerous and the data won't be used in a good way when it's sold on to insurers etc. So you get your result and think it's interesting you have parts of each country in your blood totally unaware all this information is being collected to build up health profiles to be used for big pharma (good) and insurers (bad)

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

I don't think Charlie Brooker would claim to have beeen the first writer to explore the possibilities... Metamorphoses, Beowulf, Eneas...

Terrifying and very 'black mirror' or it's predecessors as other people have mentioned. I regularly leave my phone at home and turn it off. I don't trust tge tv either but eventually I suppose every appliance will be tracking/listening in on us. A horrible thought even though as with many others my life is very mundane!

Not a fan of this either. Nope.

@Defenbaker

YANBU I hate this idea. It's bad enough having cameras at every corner in most cities, towns, and villages etc... I mean it CAN be useful, but I do feel weirdly spied on sometimes.

But yeah, a microchip in me so I can be tracked all the time .. Sod that!

The very idea of people being able to constantly see where I am, and what I am doing, at any given time, makes me shudder. No-one NEEDS to know where I am all the time.

And yes, it IS like a few sci-fi programmes and films I have seen, and as a few people have observed, it is very 'Black Mirror.' In fact there are a few 'Black Mirror' episodes where this kind of thing happens... One is called Arkangel where a mum has her daughter chipped from birth.

And then there is the lass on the BBC series 'Years and Years' (AMAZING series btw!) who has a cellphone built into her hand, and a weird chip in her head so she can track everything all her family and friends are doing - and they can do the same with her. WEIRD.

I don't even have a smartphone, and despite being goaded and mocked (by a few younger people I know,) like I am an old dinosaur; I flat out don't need one, and that's it. I will NOT get one!

The 'I don't have anything to hide' brigade really piss me off. I don't either, but I still don't want spying on 24/7.