Memory chip implants get under privacy watchdogs' skin

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction nightmares: humans injected with a computer chip that can read their most intimate secrets like a supermarket barcode.

But last week in southern Florida, eight volunteers turned it into reality.

The idea behind the so-called VeriChip, developed by a Palm Beach computer company called Applied Digital Solutions, is essentially benign. It will enable doctors receiving patients in an emergency to get an instant read-out of their medical history and so guide them towards prescribing efficient, problem-free treatment.

The volunteers, who will have the ricegrain-sized chip stamped into their upper backs just below the surface of the skin, are mostly older people with complicated medical histories.

One, for example, is an 83-year-old man in the early stages of Alzheimer's who can't be sure he'll remember to tell doctors everything they need to know about him.

But they also include a family - the Jacobs, of Boca Raton - who have decided to get "chipped" together.

Jeff Jacobs is undergoing cancer therapy but his wife, Leslie, and teenage son, Derek, a computer freak, are simply going along for the ride - and the media publicity.

In fact, they have granted permission to ABC's Good Morning America show to broadcast the procedure live to millions of people across the country.

Their decision has appalled civil liberties advocates, already concerned that a medical chip is the first step down a dangerous road towards institutionalised control.

Even the supposedly voluntary nature of the Florida experiment is giving pause to advocates like Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre.

"Who gets to decide who gets chipped?" Mr Rotenberg asked.

"Parents will decide that their kids should be implanted, or maybe their own ageing parents.

"It's an easier way to manage someone, like putting a leash on a pet."

Leslie Jacobs pooh-poohed such arguments in a commentary for USA Today: "Nobody's forcing us to use the chip. The database will only contain information that we want to be made available, and we will control who has access to that information ... "

The controversy has done nothing but good to Applied Digital's stock, which has rocketed in recent weeks from around 25c a share to around US$2 ($4.42).

Although today's trial chip injections are free, the company will in future charge US$200 for the procedure and a further US$10 a month for storing the relevant data.

Chip implants have long been a feature of American pop culture, feeding paranoia about thought control and secret Government conspiracies.

This year's Oscar-winning movie A Beautiful Mind featured a fantasy sequence in which Russell Crowe's character, the mathematician John Forbes Nash, has a chip inserted in his forearm by the CIA.

- INDEPENDENT

nzherald.co.nz/privacy

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