A few years back I ranted about a school in Buffalo that was using wireless tags worn by students to keep track of their location.
A Seattle company is taking that concept into Orwellian territory by actually embedding the tags in a couple of their employees.
CityWatcher.com, a provider of surveillance equipment, attracted little notice itself – until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms.
The “chipping” of two workers with RFIDs – radio frequency identification tags as long as two grains of rice, as thick as a toothpick – was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said.
Wal-Mart is using RFID chips to track inventory, the State Department puts them in your passport, some people embed them in their pets.
Considering the paranoid times in which we live, it’s not surprising there are people who think sticking these things in human beings is a good idea.
I’d bet there are even some who would volunteer for this kind of procedure if it would get them through security lines at the airport faster.