More than a chip off the ol' block
My wife wants to have a chip implanted in our soon-to-be-born child.
"What kind?" I asked her. "Potato or corn?"
"No," she said in the 'stop joking, I'm serious' way that tends to worry me. "A microchip so we'll know where it is."
Hmm. She wants a computer chip implanted under our child's skin so we'd be able to keep tabs on it. If you think you saw this scenario on Star Trek, you did. "Patterns of Force," episode 52, season 2. Kirk and Spock beamed down to the planet Ekos ...
Uh, sorry. Forget I know that, OK?
"Having a computer chip inserted under a person's skin," I argued, "would not only be a serious invasion of privacy, it'd be kind of creepy."
"So what you're saying," she countered, "is that if someone abducts our child, you're more worried about its privacy than its safety?"
Ouch.
This argument came up - and has yet to be resolved - after the FDA approved Applied Digital Solutions' VeriChip, a grain-of-rice-sized computer chip containing medical information that can be inserted under a person's skin.
Medical information my butt. That's just a sales pitch. The chip can also be used to track people.
Sure, the argument sounds great. Say you're in a car crash and are whisked off to a hospital. Wouldn't it be nice if all your medical records were available just by having your chip scanned like a holiday ham at a grocery store check-out line?
Whoo-hoo. The VeriChip sounds terrific. The VeriChip sounds helpful. The VeriChip could be used to save your life one day.
But the VeriChip also sounds like something the government uses in a myriad of bad science fiction movies to track down its citizens who commit crimes/say the wrong thing/turn 30 ...
I just don't want to trust the government or any corporation with something as important as my privacy.
This is like trusting Satan to watch your dog.
"Thanks, Beelzebub. Let Duke out when he whines at the door, please don't give him table scraps and you can help yourself to two Popsicles out of the freezer."
Are you kidding me? Satan will feed Duke pizza crust, he'll go through your trash for credit card statements and will probably take three Popsicles out of the freezer.*
If you can't trust an entity to tell you the truth, or trust them with your money, your safety or your frozen treats, you can't trust them to insert computer technology under your skin.
Currently, the Mexican government is trying this implanted-chip technology out for security reasons, and Europeans are trying it out to make ordering drinks in bars a little bit easier.
Maybe Applied Digital Solutions can market this new technology as "The VeriChip. Have one installed so it comes with it's own dip."
Yeah, that'd be about right.
*I'm not claiming the government or any corporation is Satan. But, if the cloven hoof fits ...
