Chip off the old block
As microchips become more advanced, potential uses are spiralling. But for a lot of people, these issues are more terrifying than exciting. Our Future Planet imagines the possibilities.
Might we ever embed communications devices under our skin, or ‘phone’ chips within our brains? What are the limits of this? What are the ethics?
The truth is that these technologies are surprisingly close to fruition, and in some cases are already there, but there are a whole bunch of issues which will need dealing with before we potentially see any widespread adoption.
For some people, the thinking behind any concept of this nature remains unsettling, and understandably so. For example, there’s little reason why RFID tags couldn’t be inserted into our palms. That way, when we leave the supermarket with our shopping, we could just run our hands over a scanner, and that would instantly show what we had to pay.
This concept can be extended, so that if you choose to visit a busy nightclub, rather than shouting at the barman or fishing around in your wallet, you can just pass your hand across the register, having signed in your card details earlier on, using the same in-hand chip, and pay for the lot instantly on credit.
Undoubtedly this conjurs up nightmare images of ‘big brother’ societies for many of us, but the truth is we already carry chips around daily in our mobile phone and cash cards. Perhaps what’s more important is the ethics behind the use, potential information gathering and whether there are more positive things we can do with this type of technology.
Lost and found
Intriguingly, it seems some of us are far less bothered about inserting chips into our animal cousins. According to its website, CHIP YOUR CAT is a collaborative program of the Denver Area Veterinary Medical Society (DAVMS), Dumb Friends League and participating members of the Metro Denver Shelter Alliance, to increase awareness and usage of microchip identification implants in order to increase the number of lost cats reunited with their owners.
The organisation says less than ten per cent of lost cats are ever brought back to their owners. The logic seems relatively simple, ‘an identifying integrated circuit about the size of a grain of rice is placed under the loose skin between the shoulder blades.’
The chip of course contains a unique ID number, so if the lost cat is taken to a vet’s clinic, the chip can be scanned and owners contacted in an instant.
It seems this kind of thing is catching on. Themercury.com.au reported in October 2009 that ‘The contentious Cat Management Bill 2009 requires that the owners of Tasmania's estimated 92,000 pet cats compulsorily microchip and desex them if they are older than six months.’
So our furry friends are moving quickly into the world of subdermal ID chipping. They of course, have little choice in the matter. Something as simple as the UK government’s attempts to impose compulsory ID cards sparked up a recent fury. The idea was ditched in May 2010.
At the time, UK Home Secretary Theresa May said: “This bill is a first step of many that this government is taking to reduce the control of the state over decent, law-abiding people and hand power back to them.
“With swift Parliamentary approval, we aim to consign identity cards and the intrusive ID card scheme to history within 100 days.” And Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg reckoned:
“The wasteful, bureaucratic and intrusive ID card scheme represents everything that has been wrong with government in recent years.”
Plainly there was a strong political element to this. But the point does seem that the general public, at least in the UK, remains opposed to nanny state concepts, in fact to any form of electronic tagging or control that takes away our sense of liberty.
But of course this ignores the massive potential of these devices. How many rape cases could be avoided, or successfully prosecuted, with the help of subdermal alert chips, that instantly send a message to the police, and using GPS even pinpoint where and when an attack is taking place?
What about lost children, or mentally unwell people, who may have absconded from treatment facilities, potentially harming themselves or others?
At this point the ethics and the judgments become seriously clouded. Who on earth is going to decide where, when and how these decisions might be made. Is it fair to subdermally chip ex offenders, or individuals deemed a threat to society? Are all ex offenders to be chipped? If so, for how long? Either way, none of this would ever be cheap.
‘Cancelling identity cards will save the taxpayer around £86m over the next four years once one-off costs like decommissioning costs, contract termination and asset write-offs are taken into account.’ explained the UK Identity and Passport service (IPS). ‘It will also save ongoing operation costs, creating a gross saving of more than £800m over ten years, which would be funded through income from fees.’
Just imagine the cost of implementing and maintaining compulsory chipping programmes.
It’s all in your head
But there’s even more astonishing stuff happening. Braingate has been working on a neural interface system ‘focused on developing technologies to restore the communication, mobility, and independence of people with neurologic disease, injury, or limb loss.’
According to the organisation’s web data, ‘Using a baby aspirin-sized array of electrodes implanted into the brain, early research from the BrainGate team has shown that the neural signals associated with the intent to move a limb can be “decoded” by a computer in real-time and used to operate external devices.
‘This investigational system, called BrainGate (Caution: Investigational Device. Limited by Federal Law to Investigational Use.) has allowed people with spinal cord injury, brainstem stroke, and ALS to control a computer cursor simply by thinking about the movement of their own paralyzed hand.’
This incredible concept would offer unthinkable freedom and quality of life. Of course sceptics would point to a darker side, arguing if we can achieve such symbiosis between mind and machine, there’s little to stop future abuses of such systems for criminal intent or even darker motives.
This of course is painting a bleak picture, but history does tend to illustrate that cutting edge technology often finds its way into conflict, or into profit based scenarios, rather than widespread beneficial moves for global societies.
It will be fascinating to watch how the science and the ethics behind the debate move on. In reality, most of today’s generation, the first to grow up with the internet, see nothing unusual in something their parents have struggled to fathom. This is true with most technology.
On that basis, there’s little reason to see we won’t all carry our bank details under our skin, or phones in our heads in a few years time.
What are your views? Not sure? Read the resources below for more information. Add your comment below. We welcome your thoughts and proposals. Not a Planetary Citizen? Sign up to Our Future Planet today!
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Resources
LifeChip - 2008 Data Sheet (Canadian Companion Animal)
A Chip Off The Old Block - Florida Trend
Is this the bionic man? - Nature
