June 30, 2022 - 8:47am
Was the Covid vaccine used to inject us with microchips? Obviously not.
However, the idea that medical implants could be used for surveillance purposes isn’t so crazy. The best-known examples are the microchips subcutaneously injected into our pets. Strictly speaking, that’s a veterinary procedure, but the same technology can be used on humans.
So far, governments have held back from chipping their populations en masse. Even dictators realise just how unpopular this would be. Though we tolerate state surveillance in many forms, we draw the line at the state machine literally leaving a part of itself inside us.
A CCTV camera may be intrusive, but physically it remains outside the human body. But what if there was a technology that fudged the distinction between in and out? The monitoring of mobile phones comes close to this grey zone, but there’s another kind of device that comes a whole lot closer.
The electronic or digital tattoo is a super-thin skin patch that incorporates tiny electrodes capable of gathering medical information. It sounds like science fiction, but the technology already exists.
In an article for IEEE Spectrum, Prachi Patel reports on the development of one such device. Physically, it takes the form of one or two layers of graphene grown on copper foil and coated with acrylic. It is thin enough to stick to human skin without adhesive.
By generating and recording tiny electric currents, it enables the researcher to derive a blood pressure reading from the patient it’s attached to. At the moment, the data can only be read by attaching wires, but the plan is for the next generation of the device to be wireless. Given that the wearer can’t even feel the tattoo, he or she is unencumbered by it. Patients are able to move around normally despite the continuous monitoring of their blood pressure.
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SubscribeYes, as an electrical engineer and long time occasional IEEE Spectrum reader, I am often appalled by the naive enthusiasm so frequently displayed by some organs and members of my profession for such obviously potentially dangerous developments. Last year some time there was a whole article on the hobbyists, researchers and enthusiasts who are already putting chips in themselves for “hassle free” payment!
I’d happily give it a go…. on the condition that the chip would be easily removable or neutralisable.
Living without the amount of documentation, cards and passwords that I currently have to put up with would be great.
Yes Ian. This is how they will sell your own enslavement to you. Hope the convenience of not having to carry a wallet is worth it.
Step 1. provide everyone with a convenient chip (it’s already here in your credit/debit card and phone) Think about it.
Step 2. Replace all old transaction terminals so that ONLY the swiping of a card/phone can be used.
Step 3. Spread disinformation about stolen cards/phones being used for fraud and the solution is to attach a chip to your hand.
Step 4. Spread disinformation about the stealing of the chip on the hand and provide a solution : implanted chip or biometric scanning.
Step 5. Remove the need for the card/external chip and you can use the biometric scan/implanted chip only “for your convenience”.
BOOM you are now a slave. Here’s the solution to all of the above :
Have pin number transactions only, no swiping. DUH!
Then there will be Hollywood movies wherein criminals will be chopping off people’s body parts to drain their bank accounts at ATMs. Or for real.
Oh great, man-made horrors beyond my comprehension!
I suspect we belong to a generation carefully curated and blithely willing to accept almost any new technological contrivance, as we prostrate ourselves before the alter of Scientism. Ultimately we are all destined to carry one of two IDs that will proclaim to whom we owe allegiance. Time is rapidly running out to procure which future we choose to belong to.
No thanks.
I see no one has mentioned the Mark of the Beast. Oh, but that is from that fantasy story, the Bible.
What’s left of the optimistic side of my nature would like to think that even humans with our lemming like desire to rush over cliff edges wouldn’t go this far down the road of no return.
The cynical devil on the other shoulder though keeps prodding me with his trident and saying if the chancers currently in Downing Street thought it might work and they could get away with it, they might not be able to resist giving it a go.
As the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.
and, no doubt some digital technology that Big Brother could use to monitor climate change denial ” hefennsyfe and hinny propyte” comment, homophobia, islamaphobia, and ” extreme right” politics?… Boris’s StasiTories will love it…
They’re not going to let the tattoos be temporary. They’re going to commoditize you and route every dime they pay you back into the company store. You will own nothing and be happy. Your life and livelihood will be an endless series of subscriptions, with no way to shut off the auto-billing.
Under the US Constitution, at least, that would be a clear violation of the expectation of privacy.
Actually, there are significant questions about whether the Constitution guarantees a right or expectaton of privacy. So, I would not put a whole lot of betting money on the expectation that the US Supreme Court would protect you on this.