In technology and innovation news: the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones reports that a Swedish bio-hacking organisation has developed a chip that goes under the skin with an office in Stockholm (Epicenter) being the first to trial it with employees.
The small radio frequency identification chips (RFID) are about the size of a small grain of rice and are inserted between the thumb and index finger. It would allow employees to open doors, access computers and photocopiers, doing away with the need for passwords, security cards and keys.
It is being developed not by a multi-national corporate entity but a group calling themselves The Swedish Bio-hacking Group who are part of a non-institutional tech development global movement. Groups are made up of individuals: usually scientists, tech innovators, biological engineers, who often work in their own time. They engage in a wide spectrum of practices ranging from designing and installing do-it-yourself body-enhancements - such as magnetic implants - to do-it-yourself biologists who conduct at-home gene sequencing.
The Chief Disruption Officer at Epicenter, Hannes Sjoblad, told the BBC that they “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”.
Employees are given the option of being chipped with responses to the trial definitely being mixed. Some are very keen and looking forward to it, with a number being vehemently against the idea.
Cellan-Jones who himself has been ‘chipped’ said the experience was “not much worse than any injection”. He still has the chip although it contains only his contact details. Technology and Innovation speaker, Professor of Cybernetics Kevin Warwick, appeared on BBC Breakfast this morning in response to the piece also had the chip implanted but has since had it removed.
Copyright Speakers Corner 2016