Human ID Chip Implant Prototype Unveiling

techfreak writes: "Applied Digital Solutions is set to unveil a working prototype of "Digital Angel", a dime-sized implantable 'microchip' which is powered by muscle movement, this October at an invitation-only event in New York City, two months ahead of the original plan. ADS Chairman Richard Sullivan said the development of the technology has progressed well ahead of schedule. It is said to be the first-ever operational combination of bio-sensor technology and Web-enabled wireless telecommunications linked to global positioning satellite location-tracking systems. Concerns have been raised over personal privacy, but ADS claims that privacy concerns are misplaced, since the device can be turned off by the owner."

Re:Whats the problem?

Obviously the people who have developed these things have no intention of using it for "evil" and only have the best intentions in mind... however that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be paranoid about it. Technology developed for the best reasons often can be used, later on, for ideas the cretors never intended. Two examples:

1. Social Security/Insurance numbers. I don't know about the US but in Canada when it was introduced it was stated that you would never have to give it to anyone except voluntarily. That included income tax and TD-1 (employment taxation form). Now it's mandatory on tax from and it is against the law to take a job and not give your SIN on your TD-1. Certainly it means you can't cheat on your taxes (I'm opposed to cheating on your taxes, btw) and that's good, but it does show that this idea was expanded to be more intrusive than originally devised.

2. Finger printing. I was finger printed as a child to "protect me from being abducted" (how that works I'm not sure, but that's the line they give...) 23 years later, I popped over to my friend's house with a 2 litre bottle of pop to watch movies. I left the empty bottle there. 2 days later he used the bottle to transport gasoline to a building which he burned to the ground. Smart guy he is, he wore gloves. Dumb ass he is, he left the cap there. Did he go to prison? Yes. Did I get arrested, lose my job and $4000 to lawyers first? Yes. Oh yes indeed.

The finger printing thing must work though. I never got abducted as a child....

Re:Main worry is totalitarian regimes, not compani

The main worry is not misuse in the US, since there is enormous media/public scrutiny. Technology like this in the hands of China/Burma/N.Korea or any of America's puppet dictatorships is the dream-come-true of totalitarian regimes, who can do whatever they want.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but misuse in the land of the free (as long as they pay) and home of the brave IS an issue. Some lobbygroup will get this signed into law, make it mandatory to chip your kids when they go to kindergarten ('they might get kidnapped, so now we can track them'), you insurance will mandate that you get one ('so the emergency service will be able to find you'), etc. Of course, the insurance company (part of a big megacorp) now knows where you are, and when, and starts selling 'anonimized' profiles to marketing firms ('we are concerned with your privacy, if you do not want this then please fill out this 10-page form in Assirian glyphs'). Your kids will get used to the idea that they have this chip inside them, they might even get some small benefits from it ('people with ID-chip through the fast lane, those without show your passports please'), so they probably will think it 'natural' that they can be tracked everywhere.

Meanwhile, in another part of town, J.Edgar Hoover's great-grandson has risen to the top of the F.B.I, and takes up where his predecessor left off. When later questioned by the Senate, he states that 'it was imperative for national security that these people were tracked down'. Although there was no conclusive evidence that those people ever did something wrong, they were put away anyhow, since national security is a serious matter, especially when your own position is at stake.

But no, this will never happen in the US of A. Right?

Re:seems iffy

why are our GPS receivers still cell phone sized and operate for only 18h on a bunch of standard batteries?

GPS handheld units are cell phone size because most people like to have a screen of certain size to look at. GPS-on-a-chip systems are commercially available now and somebody (Casio?) already sells a consumer GPS watch. Power requirements -- I don't know. If you take away all the extras and leave just the basics -- signal receiving circuitry and minimal calculating capabilities -- the drain might be very small.

Why aren't there lots of simple implantable medical monitors that monitor on a much smaller scale?

"Simple" and "implantable" is a contradiction in terms. Implanting stuff is complicated, expensive and scary. Often not necessary, as well.

Why do this in humans first, when there are so many applications in animals and property tracking?

It is already being done on a wide scale for animal and property tracking. Not implant, though, because it's much simpler and cheaper to put a collar onto an animal than to perform a surgical procedure.

Even though devices are less regulated than drugs, what about human testing?

This IS human testing 8-)

In any case, given that it's very easy to block the GPS signal (e.g. go inside a building or under heavy tree cover), I doubt that this technology is useful for arbitraty tracking of people. I think that what they have in mind is more like tracking people inside highly classified buldings.

Although the day a government will insist on implanting a chip in me as a precondition for a job will be the day I move on to friendlier shores...

Kaa

What about...

C'mon... I thought information wanted to be free. One's heartbeat and GPS loc is simply information. Does this mantra have exceptions?
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Technology is not the problem, people are

Imagine this scenario: I'm off for a weekend's rock climbing, loaded up with just the essentials, ie. as close to nothing as possible.

Carrying the kitchen sink while inching up a cliff face not only slows you down, it reduces your life expectancy. So, I don't want to lug around a cellphone, GPS, PDA, cash, credit cards, organ donor card, maps, compass, pen, torch, radio, or altimeter (:-).

Instead, I slap a couple of DataPatches on my arms and one on my forehead; they look kinda like bandaids. The one on my forehead provides most of the clever stuff: not only a useful amount of computing power, but also micropower transmissions to the dumb receptors I've had implanted in my retinal and ear nerve stems. Triggered by blink codes, I get all the info I need superimposed on my regular vision. I suppose this is a descendent of those crappy old head-up displays.

The DataPatches on my arms do the brute force work, as there's a large amount of excess energy on the surface of muscles that's easy to tap. Body data is gathered both locally and from the forehead patch transmissions, and external data is gathered from GPS and terrestrial radio transponders. This is all available to me on my A/V channels, but in addition, the arm patches store up power for occasional long-distance data bursts with the help of additional power-pump amplifiers in the heels of my shoes. As a result, I'm not only safer by being better informed, I'm also safer because my progress monitor a thousand miles away at home is keeping tabs on how I'm doing. And should something unfortunate happen, well, it knows what to do.

Now then, where is the "not good" in that scenario? There is none, because I'm in control of the technology, not somebody else. It's working for me, extending my control over the environment, helping me to survive and to have fun.

The problem isn't technology, but the people that might use it to gain power over you. That has always been the case and I guess it'll always be so, but that's not a reason for labelling technology as "bad". In that direction lies Luddism. Take it further and it's the end of Man's progress towards the stars.

The Power of Myth

If you've ever read Joseph Campbell you'll realize that people live by their myths. They are so deep-seated that they influence thought even after years of school.

Something like this might fly in Europe but not in the U.S. One of our deep seated myths(as has been posted many times in this discussion) is the 666/number of the beast myth. People have been saying for years how the antichrist will take over the government and force everyone to be branded with a number(barcode) - if you refuse the mark you will not be able to buy or sell anything and therefore will perish.

Regardless of any advantages a digital implant might bring, this prevalent myth will destroy its chances in the U.S. It will be interesting to see if it takes off in Europe while the U.S. denies this technology because of its superstition.

Personally, I side with the fundamentalists and zealots on this issue. A digital tracking device is just too much of an invasion of privacy and is subject to too much abuse to make it worthwhile.

not good

This is very, very dangerous. The article's a little vague, but it would take a lot to convince me the disadvantages far outweigh the benefits. For example:

The unit can be turned off by the wearer, thereby making the monitoring voluntary. It will not intrude on personal privacy except in applications applied to the tracking of criminals.

Ok, how exactly do we turn this off? From the remark on "the tracking of criminals" it makes it sound like it would have to be disabled by whoever was running the system. I can easily imagine some governments using it to track dissidents, even outside of criminal investigations. I wouldn't want to tempt law enforcement agencies into this kind of invasion of privacy.

The idea of it drawing it's power from it's host is probably the most interesting part of the article, but I think there would be a lot more beneficial uses for it (medical analysis for example) than creating a worldwide human tracking system.
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yikes!!!

from the google cache of the site:
"an array of beneficial potential applications: provide a tamper-proof means of locating and identifying individuals for e-business and e-commerce security"

what the FUCK does that mean? any way i interpret that, it sounds pretty freakin scary. are they talking about tagging employees or customers?

- isaac =)

This is not new

Although the implementation may be more advanced (site says they want to use GPS), but this has already been done before, at the University of Reading, England.

See the ZDNet article here [zdnet.co.uk] or Slashdot article here [slashdot.org] or the original academic text
here [rdg.ac.uk].
These first uses were to do with intelligent buildings though, for just positional and indentification info, rather than any form of biological monitoring.

lame quickies...

If these chips are embedded, would it be fair to say that they are ARM chips?

Will people that work out a lot have Strong ARM chips?

Imagine if Microsoft wrote the firmware for these things?

"Hey man it's cool, I run windows! Oh crap, the left side of my body has just gone numb..."

Scary world Scenarios

Favorite quote "The unit can be turned off by the wearer, thereby making the monitoring voluntary. It will not intrude on personal privacy except in applications applied to the tracking of criminals" What precisely constitutes a criminal, and who determines when it gets turned on.

Scenario one:

You post a piece of code on a crypto-enthusiast site. 30 minutes later your implant is turned on (remember the on you got for being busted for pot being in the car) and 30 minutes after that the happy little NSA black van picks you up.

Scenario two:

You're walking downtown, scratching the still stinging itch from your implant. You didn't want it, but it was required before would hire you. After all you are on the helpdesk staff, and you have to be reachable at all times. Yes, you have a pager, and a satellite phone, but this is just the next logical progression. Besides it's for your safety... at least that's what the company literature said...

Scenario Three:

You move into this lovely little gated community, it's like a little slice of heaven. You meet all the neighbors, and ask they how they be soon unconcerned about their children and they breezily reply that they're all 'chipped'. Traceable, watched and safe. You fret a little bit and finally decide to do it, after the HeavenGate (tm) community you live in is offering to help offset the cost, and nothing is more important then little Jimmy's safety. Then one day it happens, Jimmy doesn't come home. Frantic, you call the Gate Police, and they tell you not to worry, he's probably somewhere playing. They'll activate his chip and bring him home. Hours pass. There is a knock at the door. It's the gated police. But no Jimmy. Just a ziplock bag with the chip, and a ransom note. After all what good does the chip do the kidnapper after he's used it to locate your children?

How to turn it off - X-Acto knife!

Even the dumbest criminal is going to realize that it is implanted right below the surface of your skin, and get somebody to cut it out with a scalpel. It would take maybe a minute, could be done in a moving car, and the device tossed out the window right about the same time the people doing the tracking figured out what was going on.

Hence, the criminal disappears.

Now as for other applications, like tracking livestock, lost pets, missing children, medical monitoring, yes, these have some potential societal benefits.
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New Urban Legend

the device can be turned off by the owner ...if the owner knows its there.

This guy I know, went to Vegas, and met this really hot babe. He takes her back to his room, thinking he's going to get lucky, but she slips a drug in his drink. The next morning he wakes up in a bathrub filled with ice. He feels like shit and his neck hurts. Then he notices a sign on his chest that says, "Don't call 911. You're fine." He doesn't, and just goes home. He didn't know it, but his wife had paid someone to implant a chip in his neck, and now she tracks his every move.

Re:How to turn it off - X-Acto knife!

But the point is whether the criminal will even KNOW he or she is being considered one. If you look at the history of wiretapping in the US, people who had not committed a crime were being recorded because their politics weren't popular with some people in power. Let's say we have an activist who is being tracked. Someone unsympathetic to her cause might monitor where she goes. People she visits socially might themselves might be monitored because of their association with her. Local law enforcement might be alerted whenever she enters their area, and they might start watching her. I actually don't think this sort of thing happens that often; agencies mandated with enforcing the law usually do so legally. But all you need is one person in power who feels differently, another Hoover or McCarthy, and suddenly you have a major problem.
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So what's new?

This is not a revolution, it's just an evolution of currently available technology.

If a government wants to track criminals, dissidents, journalists or whatever, the technology to do this has been developed a long time ago. You just need a bracelet with a radio transmitter, secured around the persons wrist or ankle. Hell, I bet half the bears here in Norway has got one of those...

The real obstacles to abusing this kind of technology are not the technological challenges in itself, but the social and political ramifications. We don't see personal radio beacons, even in the most oppressive states on earth. Why would it suddenly become more widespread, because it's implanted?

seems iffy

A dime sized receiver and transmitter capable of communicating with satellites? And all of that while implated under the skin, inside a conductive medium? Powered by electricity generated from muscles?

If all that is possible, why are our GPS receivers still cell phone sized and operate for only 18h on a bunch of standard batteries? Why aren't there lots of simple implantable medical monitors that monitor on a much smaller scale? Why do this in humans first, when there are so many applications in animals and property tracking? Even though devices are less regulated than drugs, what about human testing?

Take a look at the stock chart [yahoo.com] on Yahoo! and check out the associated news and insider stock activity, salaries of the CEO, etc. The whole thing seems pretty iffy to me.