Office puts chips under staff's skin

[iHammmy]

Want to gain entry to your office, get on a bus, or perhaps buy a sandwich? We're all getting used to swiping a card to do all these things. But at Epicenter, a new hi-tech office block in Sweden, they are trying a different approach - a chip under the skin.

Felicio de Costa, whose company is one of the tenants, arrives at the front door and holds his hand against it to gain entry. Inside he does the same thing to get into the office space he rents, and he can also wave his hand to operate the photocopier.

That's all because he has a tiny RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip, about the size of a grain of rice, implanted in his hand. Soon, others among the 700 people expected to occupy the complex will also be offered the chance to be chipped. Along with access to doors and photocopiers, they're promised further services in the longer run, including the ability to pay in the cafe with a touch of a hand.

On the day of the building's official opening, the developer's chief executive was, himself, chipped live on stage. And I decided that if was to get to grips with this technology, I had to bite the bullet - and get chipped too.

The whole process is being organised by a Swedish bio-hacking group which was profiled by my colleague Jane Wakefield recently. One of its members, a rather fearsome looking tattooist, inserted my chip.

First, he massaged the skin between my thumb and index finger and rubbed in some disinfectant. The he told me to take a deep breath while he inserted the chip. There was a moment of pain - not much worse than any injection - and then he stuck a plaster over my hand.

Before trying my chip out, I wanted to know more about the thinking behind it. Hannes Sjoblad, whose electronic business card is on his own chip and can be accessed with a swipe of a smartphone, has the title chief disruption officer at the development. I asked him whether people really wanted to get this intimate with technology.

"We already interact with technology all the time," he told me. "Today it's a bit messy - we need pin codes and passwords. Wouldn't it be easy to just touch with your hand? That's really intuitive."

When I tested my chip, I found that it was not all that intuitive - I had to twist my hand into an unnatural position to make the photocopier work. And while some of the people around the building were looking forward to being chipped, others were distinctly dubious. "Absolutely not," said one young man when I asked him if he'd sign up. An older woman was more positive about the potential of the technology but saw little point in being chipped just to get through a door.

But Hannes Sjoblad says he and the Swedish Biohacking Group have another objective - preparing us all for the day when others want to chip us. "We want to be able to understand this technology before big corporates and big government come to us and say everyone should get chipped - the tax authority chip, the Google or Facebook chip." Then, he says, we'll all be able to question the way the technology is implemented from a position of much greater knowledge.

I've returned to Britain with a slightly sore hand - and a chip still under my skin which has my contact details on it. Not that useful, but no doubt more sophisticated chips will soon replace wearable technology like fitness bands or payment devices, and we will get used to being augmented. All sorts of things are possible - whether it becomes culturally acceptable to insert technology beneath our skin is another matter.

 

 

All information taken directly from BBC new's website.

 

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31042477

 

- Harry

[Jobbe03]

"to gain entry to your office, get on a bus, or perhaps buy a sandwich?"

[iHammmy]

Sorry for the style, for some reason it's not letting me put it in the automatic colour.

[ShadowCaptain]

"to gain entry to your office, get on a bus, or perhaps buy a sandwich?"

 

yep haha seems pretty self explanatory to me

[Aniallation]

why is this green

[ShadowCaptain]

Sorry for the style, for some reason it's not letting me put it in the automatic colour.

 

if you are on chrome copy the text, and then paste as plain text

[iHammmy]

why is this green

Read the third comment

[zanduh]

If it's not doing any actual biometric scanning I'm just going to take the RFID chip and put it in my phone case... to you know.. avoid putting things in my body that have no reason to be there

[Yoinkerman]

Nope not a chance

[ionbasa]

This is a little absurd. I have 2 RFID key cards (one for University lab/shop access and the other for my internship) and the key cards do not bother me in the slightest.

With NFC, what is wrong with just using something like a smart watch or smartphone for access?  

 

Personally, I wouldn't opt-in to the experiment if they paid me. Now if this was a few hundred years from now, (and lets say I'm not dead) and the tech has been proven and is used everywhere, I may reconsider. But I don't think being part of an chip experiment is worth it at the current time, mostly because in some cases, implanted chips may play a role in increasing cancer risks (what we know from dogs and other mammals).

[iHammmy]

This is a little absurd. I have 2 RFID key cards (one for University lab/shop access and the other for my internship) and the key cards do not bother me in the slightest.

With NFC, what is wrong with just using something like a smart watch or smartphone for access?  

 

Personally, I wouldn't opt-in to the experiment if they paid me. Now if this was a few hundred years from now, (and lets say I'm not dead) and the tech has been proven and is used everywhere, I may reconsider. But I don't think being part of an chip experiment is worth it at the current time, mostly because in some cases, implanted chips may play a role in increasing cancer risks (what we know from dogs and other mammals).

I agree! they could have just used bio-metric techniques

[Syntaxvgm]

ok...for some reason my original post in this thread was removed

 

 

it was futurama career chips

[iHammmy]

ok...for some reason my original post in this thread was removed

 

 

it was futurama career chips

I think a mod may have removed it

[Syntaxvgm]

I think a mod may have removed it

Yah I sent off a message about that. I've been getting posts removed all of the time, even ones trying to help others in the troubleshooting section that I can't think of why would be against COC. This case is likely it looked like an unrelated picture with no text, but I still want to ask about the rest of it. I really want to push them toward sending a notice when a thing is removed. 

[MrCthuntoo]

Imagine having to ring your boss to tell him/her you've lost your 'key' to the office

[iHammmy]

Imagine having to ring your boss to tell him/her you've lost your 'key' to the office

I'm sure he would be pretty mad...

 

I live very close to you...

[BiG StroOnZ]

Too bad RFID chips implanted in the skin have been proven to cause Cancer:

 

http://www.naturalnews.com/022467_RFID_chips_microchipping.html

 

http://arstechnica.com/science/2007/09/rfid-implants-linked-to-cancer-the-lowdown/

 

http://www.dailytech.com/RFID+Chips+Linked+to+FastGrowing+Cancer/article8796.htm

[shujin]

would be awsome if it would nhave more functionality

[ionbasa]

Too bad RFID chips implanted in the skin have been proven to cause Cancer:

 

http://www.naturalnews.com/022467_RFID_chips_microchipping.html

 

http://arstechnica.com/science/2007/09/rfid-implants-linked-to-cancer-the-lowdown/

 

http://www.dailytech.com/RFID+Chips+Linked+to+FastGrowing+Cancer/article8796.htm

Suspected link to increased cancer risk, not proven to 100% cause cancer. Regardless, I mentioned that as a concern in my first post in this thread. I wouldn't be willing to get one. Any foreign object in a biological body is just asking for trouble.

[BiG StroOnZ]

Suspected link to increased cancer risk, not proven to 100% cause cancer. Regardless, I mentioned that as a concern in my first post in this thread. I wouldn't be willing to get one. Any foreign object in a biological body is just asking for trouble.

 

Anything that causes tumorous growths around the site of injection is enough to be considered proven. Anyone who ignores that is just being naive. I understand you stated it, but you downplayed it as if it's just a possibility or a risk. It's more than a risk. The tumors were surrounding where the chips were implanted.

 

I mean what more do people need as a warning? Millions of humans adopting this despicable technology because they are so quick to become androids and then half of them gets cancer from it and dies?

[ionbasa]

Anything that causes tumorous growths around the site of injection is enough to be considered proven. Anyone who ignores that is just being naive. 

Scientifically speaking: no. There is a plausible correlation. And by the way, it doesn't cause a tumorous growth in all patients and experiments. Look at the research done and the articles you posted; they all use the word "linked", as in RFID implants have been linked to an increase in cancer risk.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you (if you read my other post in this thread, you'll see i'm clearly against the idea), but you can't make incorrect claims like that because correlation does not imply causation. If you are going to talk science, do it right and not half assed.

[WolfDeville]

[Albatross]

Ah hell no to this!

 

No, no, no, no. :angry:

[BiG StroOnZ]

 

Scientifically speaking: no. There is a plausible correlation. And by the way, it doesn't cause a tumorous growth in all patients and experiments. Look at the research done and the articles you posted; they all use the word "linked", as in RFID implants have been linked to an increase in cancer risk.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you (if you read my other post in this thread, you'll see i'm clearly against the idea), but you can't make incorrect claims like that because correlation does not imply causation. If you are going to talk science, do it right and not half assed.

 

Scientifically, this is what the article says, "significant increase in malignant tumor growth."

 

The report which had those findings, now has disappeared from the internet. That report dated back to the late 1990's. 

 

They aren't incorrect claims, there is a correlation and there is causation. This is not half assed. Thinking that is the case is just a mistake, not just for you but for anyone thinking about putting a microchip in their body.