Say No To Cyborgs?

At least one state, Wisconsin, in the United States has passed a bill banning forcible implanting of RFID chips into people. As I wrote in a MyGlobalCity post recently, that doesn’t stop people from doing it to themselves. People, including a police chief and a computer geek, have inserted RFID chips into the webbed area of flesh and skin between thumb and forefinger.

The bill also doesn’t stop our pets being tagged - which has been happening all over North America for quite some time - nor the cybugs that the Pentagon is supposedly developing. Yes, robot bugs, which will be used for covert surveillance. The next time you see a spider on your wall, consider running a bug [sic] detector on it.

On the other hand, wearable devices that contain RFID or similar technology could be used to help people with a variety of physical ailments to get around safely in their homes. Similarly, mobility devices such as wheelchairs or scooters could be equipped with anti-collision technology.

In none of these applications is there any requirement that microchips have to be implanted into people. If you’ve ever watched nature shows from the 70s and 80s, the animals that were caught and tagged never had chips implanted. Instead, they were outfitted with some sort of collar or other band secured on their bodies. It was these bands that contained the technology necessary for tracking each animal.

It’s surprising, then, that there are people in the United States (supposedly in California) who have actively been pushing for nearly 20 years for the mandatory implanting of microchips into all children after a certain age, to prevent a variety of terrible situations. Without getting into graphic detail, implanting a microchip in a child does not actually prevent certain crimes. Especially if the chips are implanted in standard locations on the body, as it would likely be relatively easy to remove them. Surely there are other technology-based solutions that do not require creating cyborgs out of us.

Technorati Tags: technobabble, techno babble, RFID, cyborg, cybug, anti-technology bills