Identity Chips
Created | Updated Feb 13, 2004
History
The Jacobs family of Boca Raton, Florida can be considered different from their neighbors. According to Julia Scheeres in a Wired News article entitled “They Want Their ID Chips Now,” the Jacobs are the first family in the world to have a device called a VeriChip implanted into their arms.
It’s about the size of a grain of rice, costs $200 to inject and $10 a month for database maintenance according to Matthew Cossolotto, a spokesman from the chip’s manufacturer Applied Digital Solutions.
According to Scheeres in her article “Implantable Chip, On Sale Now,” VeriChips could yield much usefulness. Nuclear power plant employees could simply scan their upper arms at clearance points to enter into restricted areas.
Identity theft and ATM machine fraud could be reduced dramatically when all of your vital information is beneath your skin.
The “chipping” process begins when a customer tells ADS what information they would like to encode onto their VeriChip. After it is injected into the flesh, the chip gives of a 125 kHz signal that can be read by scanners.
It is obvious that there is a flip side to the coin of being chipped. Privacy advocates decry them as “digital leashes” with Big Brother implications. Many Christians believe that the chips are the Mark of the Beast as described in the book of Revelation.
Both sides fear that forced chippings could become a reality. Gary Wohlscheid, president of The Last Days Ministries, warns that in three to four years those who refuse to be chipped will be executed by government officials.
Cossolotto says the VeriChip “is intended for good purposes” in an attempt to allay many people’s fears. Of course, some people, like the Jacobs family’s eighth-grade son Derek, don’t need to be convinced.
Derek (who holds dear his title as the first child to be chipped) has often fantasized about the merging of man and machine. He says it’s the “next step in the evolution of man and technology.”
In an effort to raise awareness, ADS has deployed mobile chipping stations and their slogan “Get Chipped!” Thousands of people have registered to be embedded with the VeriChip, many of them children.
Privacy expert Richard Smith disagrees entirely with both those for and against getting chipped. He says that the VeriChip is useless in this day and age because neither the police force nor the hospitals have scanners to use them.
Promotions and discounts continue to lure new customers to Applied Digital Solutions. Technological progress continues as we navigate the uncharted waters of the future.
