The Times: Tech column - The VeriChip/Rewriting online history/The end of free
By David Rowan
Forget all the excitement this week about global-positioning satellites tracking your car to bill you for your journey. That is so 20th century. The newest application for this technology is far more intrusive: the computer chip permanently implanted in your arm, so wherever you are the network can track you. Not even Orwell thought of this one.
It is called the VeriChip and the Florida company behind it, Applied Digital Solutions, is promoting it as a solution to everything from medical emergencies to kidnappings. It has even applied to trademark the phrase "Get chipped" to make what is effectively a subcutaneous radio transmitter sound hip. The VeriChip carries personal data which can be picked up with a special scanning unit, or linked to a GPS transmitter to identify wherever you happen to be. You need never be alone again.
This week, 14-year-old Derek Jacobs from Florida is waiting to have the centimetre-long microchip injected into his left arm and, he hopes, those of other family members: his father, who has Hodgkin's Disease and lymphoma, could share his medical history with anyone who has a reading device. In Brazil, meanwhile, Antonio de Cunha Lima, a politician in Sao Paulo, wants to be chipped for another reason: "I believe this technology will act to deter the rise of kidnapping in our cities," he says. If Daniel Pearl had been a carrier, it was muttered this week, the Wall Street Journal reporter might have been rescued in time. Perhaps.
But what happens when this technology becomes so cheap and widely available that politicians also promote its ability to erode personal privacy? In anti-terrorism circles, the personal microchip is already being touted as the next-generation identity card. Earlier this month, the US news programme 60 Minutes pinpointed its attraction. "We need a system for permanently identifying 'safe' people," the programme's Andy Rooney explained. "Most of us are never going to blow anything up, and there has got to be something better than one of these photo IDs. I wouldn't mind having something permanently in my arm that would identify me."
Amid such worrying discussions, Britain's debate about a national identity smartcard begins to look rather parochial. Even now, you can almost hear some Home Office upstart imploring the minister: "Let's go the whole hog and stick a chip into a few troublesome refugees. Then, maybe, the benefit claimants." And then the rest of us. It's not that far-fetched a vision for a nation apparently happy for cameras to track its citizens' every movement.
++++
It is always unwise to rewrite history, especially when the Internet Archive is busy capturing pages for posterity at www.archive.org. The biography of Thomas E. White, Secretary of the US Army, was recently modified on the Army website to explain that from 1990 to 2001 he "was employed by Enron Corporation and held various senior executive positions". Funnily enough, the earlier version goes on about his responsibilities at Enron, from "purchasing, maintaining, and operating energy assets" to "capital management and facilities management". Why would he want to omit all that?
++++
Remember when the Internet was full of expensively generated content that cost you not a bean? It was always an eccentric business principle, giving things away for free. Now, though, reality appears to be setting in: each week another bunch of websites launches a "premium" paid-for service or turns to a subscription model. In the past week, AvantGo has started charging for some PDA services, AltaVista has scrapped free e-mail, and Another.com has demanded cash for web-mail. There is even a website that is chronicling this trend: www.theendoffree.com. It is free to visit - though there is no telling for how long.
(The Times, February 27 2002)
Forget all the excitement this week about global-positioning satellites tracking your car to bill you for your journey. That is so 20th century. The newest application for this technology is far more intrusive: the computer chip permanently implanted in your arm, so wherever you are the network can track you. Not even Orwell thought of this one.
It is called the VeriChip and the Florida company behind it, Applied Digital Solutions, is promoting it as a solution to everything from medical emergencies to kidnappings. It has even applied to trademark the phrase "Get chipped" to make what is effectively a subcutaneous radio transmitter sound hip. The VeriChip carries personal data which can be picked up with a special scanning unit, or linked to a GPS transmitter to identify wherever you happen to be. You need never be alone again.
This week, 14-year-old Derek Jacobs from Florida is waiting to have the centimetre-long microchip injected into his left arm and, he hopes, those of other family members: his father, who has Hodgkin's Disease and lymphoma, could share his medical history with anyone who has a reading device. In Brazil, meanwhile, Antonio de Cunha Lima, a politician in Sao Paulo, wants to be chipped for another reason: "I believe this technology will act to deter the rise of kidnapping in our cities," he says. If Daniel Pearl had been a carrier, it was muttered this week, the Wall Street Journal reporter might have been rescued in time. Perhaps.
But what happens when this technology becomes so cheap and widely available that politicians also promote its ability to erode personal privacy? In anti-terrorism circles, the personal microchip is already being touted as the next-generation identity card. Earlier this month, the US news programme 60 Minutes pinpointed its attraction. "We need a system for permanently identifying 'safe' people," the programme's Andy Rooney explained. "Most of us are never going to blow anything up, and there has got to be something better than one of these photo IDs. I wouldn't mind having something permanently in my arm that would identify me."
Amid such worrying discussions, Britain's debate about a national identity smartcard begins to look rather parochial. Even now, you can almost hear some Home Office upstart imploring the minister: "Let's go the whole hog and stick a chip into a few troublesome refugees. Then, maybe, the benefit claimants." And then the rest of us. It's not that far-fetched a vision for a nation apparently happy for cameras to track its citizens' every movement.
++++
It is always unwise to rewrite history, especially when the Internet Archive is busy capturing pages for posterity at www.archive.org. The biography of Thomas E. White, Secretary of the US Army, was recently modified on the Army website to explain that from 1990 to 2001 he "was employed by Enron Corporation and held various senior executive positions". Funnily enough, the earlier version goes on about his responsibilities at Enron, from "purchasing, maintaining, and operating energy assets" to "capital management and facilities management". Why would he want to omit all that?
++++
Remember when the Internet was full of expensively generated content that cost you not a bean? It was always an eccentric business principle, giving things away for free. Now, though, reality appears to be setting in: each week another bunch of websites launches a "premium" paid-for service or turns to a subscription model. In the past week, AvantGo has started charging for some PDA services, AltaVista has scrapped free e-mail, and Another.com has demanded cash for web-mail. There is even a website that is chronicling this trend: www.theendoffree.com. It is free to visit - though there is no telling for how long.
(The Times, February 27 2002)
<< Home