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?

Mabel it's not just smart phones than can be tracked. Any mobile phone leaves a record when it connects to a base station.

Do a search for China's social credit system and then see if you think this is a good idea.

And we won't always be ruled over by the relatively harmless fools that we have now. This country is dying and would be very easy to take by a stronger one. Do you honestly think we'd win another war? We're all just pathetic drones waiting to be taken over.

Our ability to handle the data safely and securely is a huge risk. MI5 have already admitted they have a problem looking after the data they've gathered.

Human rights activists just would not allow it if it was going to be enforced to us.

Ah, yes- the human rights activists who get the final say in these kind of decisions

This is so scary, and so easy to see how people could be coerced into acceptance. All they’d have to do is make it a condition of getting credit, a job...

Another worrying thing is systems going wrong. Think of the chaos when banking systems have a problem. Imagine if that chaos extended to everything everyone needs to do.

I see this as a real thing in the not so distant future and very much a way to control and influence the masses. I also see the many potential flaws ie. An incompetent government screwing up the data and the innovative non law abiding folks finding ways to fiddle - visions of implants being excised and replaced with dodgy ones. Quite scary prospects for the future.

There are always people on privacy related threads saying I’ve got nothing to hide or I’m uninteresting...

What if you’re working for, say, Mac Donald’s and you’re caught going into KFC and they consider it promoting a competitor. Or what if Richard from accounting isn’t taking no for an answer so he decides to keep tabs on you as you go about your daily business? What if your boss just wants to know your daily routine or if you regularly visit a std clinic or a gay bar... the information that can be gathered on an uninteresting person is like gold to manipulators either in marketing or in the stalking circles. It’s creepy as fuck.

The law as it stands now with phone data is such that to access it requires certain processes but if your boss chips you you’ll be consenting to them having access to data previously only say police would be allowed to apply to get access to. And what if you change jobs a lot? Is that a new chip for every job?

Nah. No chips for me tyvm

One of my favourite films is Gattaca, but it's frightening how blindly we are walking into that type of controlled society that is not too far in the future.
All the people trying to point out the positives are fools to not see how horrifying some of the negatives could be.

I would love this as its so fecking annoying having to remember a hundred different passwords and security questions.

I can't believe people think this is a good idea because it saves on password faff.

People shouldn't be scared. A national resident's database is a great idea. Only criminals (and misguided liberals) could think differently.

Gth there's a big difference between a database or ID cards, and being microchipped.

*A national resident's database is a great idea. I think that's called the electoral register... or the council tax list... or maybe even the National Census.

But not microchipped citizens.

It wouldn't bother me.

If it helped sort out people who shouldn't be entitled to share in the good things in our society, so much the better. It should reduce crime for a start, so as I am not a criminal, I don't have a problem.

You don't seem to have a flight of fancy, an imagination either, Gth Can I recommend a book or three? There are some great ones out there, some more than 100 years old, that look at the possibilities of a becalmed citizenry allowing all sorts of horrendous 'social fixes' to be done to them!

Some have come to pass, though the terminology does nto matsh ours, obviously. But much of the fictional dystopian world are scarily real and close.

I think you are worrying too much. You should have welcomed identity cards more enthusiastically.

Another thing that is coming is car/vehicle tracking. All cars will be auto-drive, and forced to adhere to speed limits and so on, and they will also send tracking information out. They will probably also be linked to specific individuals, preventing theft. Also good news for a safe society.

Glad I could help :)

I'm more worried about 5G, maybe look at what will happen with this.
At least the chipping would only bother those that worked for organisations that use them. I'd be out the door, tbh, but couldn't work for an organisation or corporate.

Noooo! Not them either. Do you not know how they get you to the Clinic?

Romany what are 5G please?

Lost half my post!

That should read, what are the worries with 5G please?

Rosa
www.fastcompany.com/90314058/5g-means-youll-have-to-say-goodbye-to-your-location-privacy

Just googled and found this, but have read a few now, there are a lot if you google. [thnks]

It wouldn't bother me. If it helped sort out people who shouldn't be entitled to share in the good things in our society, so much the better. It should reduce crime for a start, so as I am not a criminal, I don't have a problem.

If the political situation changes, there is no knowing who would and who wouldn't be a criminal. Italy has just moved to criminalise rescuing refugees at sea (though how on earth you're supposed to know who is and isn't a refugee when you're out there in a gale is anybody's guess). My db, who is the most upright of men, volunteers for the lifeboats (though thankfully not in Italy) and has been involved in saving lives at sea before: he bloody well didn't ask to see proof of citizenship as he saw the other boat going down.

Things were illegal in the USSR which are not illegal here. China has rather a different take on who is and who isn't a criminal.

I am not a criminal at the moment, I am not an activist either, but I certainly don't rule out the possibility that I could become either. It all depends on who is in charge of the definition.

And that is before we even consider who else could be hacking into the registers.

Definitely nope.

Nineteen Eighty-Four.

We may be a little late in getting there, but we're going as fast as we can...

corythatwas
And that is before we even consider who else could be hacking into the registers.

Just the various state governments in the USA would be enough. How many doctors would treat women at all, in case what they do for them turns out to be illegal five years down the line?