Would You Let Your Boss Put a Chip in Your Body?

I'm genuinely not sure whether you thought this was a good thing because superficially it looks more secure or a bad thing because in reality the ways of circumventing it are worse than the original problem.

Greenisus• 8 years ago

The answer is no for me as well, but my bigger concerns are:

1. What is the chip made of? I don't want some manufactured object with plastics etc in my body.

2. What if a better chip comes out later? Or what if you leave the company that chipped you? Even if you can have it removed, you're committing to having a scar, right?

ravenstine• 8 years ago

there is no way it can be tracked

Uh huh. Right.

1_800_UNICORN• 8 years ago

Short answer: no.

Long answer: nooooooooo.

End of story. Goodbye.

some_account• 8 years ago

In the future, we all will.

It will happen in a small steps. Implanted chip to simply pass the security checks, or to just pay for things by holding up your hand etc. Things that make your life super convenient.

It's always the same methods, step by step to get people used to it.

Someone1234• 8 years ago

Let me put it this way, I chose a 401K instead of a better traditional retirement plan for the simple reason that it allowed me to change employers more easily if I needed to. So they have absolutely no chance of convincing me to put something inside my body, which is difficult to remove, tied to a single employer. People no longer work at one company their whole lives.

Not to mention the potential health implications and removal are largely unknowns at this point. I find it interesting that the proponents often don't state outright if they themselves got chipped, only that the little people below them were goaded into it.

Talyen42• 8 years ago

“I do this to my dog — why wouldn’t I do it to myself?”

Because my dog keeps losing his wallet.

There is no good use case for chipping humans outside of imaginary ultra-security-required situations.

gnode• 8 years ago

With facial recognition and other biometrics improving I see little purpose in chipping for identification beyond ultra-high security niches. Arguably that's more of a privacy concern, as there's little you can do to detach yourself from your biometric identity.

Silhouette2• 8 years ago

This article, or at least many of the sources cited, seems to be conflating two very different things.

We already have various kinds of medical technology that are implanted; pacemakers, for example. Those are mostly uncontroversial because they have obvious advantages for patients and because of the general trust we put in the medical profession to act in the patient's interest.

This seems to be entirely different situation to an employer putting their own chip into employees. I didn't see a single benefit in the article that would come anywhere near justifying such an invasive and potentially harmful procedure. We already have instant payments with NFC devices, touch cards to open doors and so on. What's the big advantage of embedding such things within the human body?

I'm also quite sceptical about the idea that the younger generation who have grown up as digital natives will find this more acceptable. That younger generation are often a lot wiser than their parents and grandparents about staying safe online; for example, many of them casually discard social media accounts and move around, and they routinely give false details and use pseudonyms. Older generations might have used their real name and still have the same Facebook account 10 years later, but try finding any 20 year old who does that. It's true that digital natives still put up with a lot of intrusion for convenience, but IME only in cases where they feel they have no choice without giving up a big part of their lives. Nothing in the article here comes anywhere near that category, and given the simple idea and obvious alternatives, it's hard to see how that is going to change any time soon.

with_a_herring• 8 years ago

Of course not ! Even for proven health benefits, I would probably refuse that, not only from my boss, of course, but from anyone. This feels very wrong on so many levels.

mikevp• 8 years ago

Oh, Hell no.

And I'm old enough I can just retire if they were to push it.

closetohome• 8 years ago

I feel like this kind of ignores the big difference between current, not particularly compelling technology (an RFID chip), and future implantable technology.

Currently the only thing an implanted chip can do is replace an RFID card, which isn't all that uniquely useful. Even for nudist vacations.

Sure, if they can implant a whole health sensor in my hand that my doctor can monitor (not my employer, thank you very much), I'm interested. But that's a world away from letting my boss RFID chip me just so I can buy food in the cafeteria.

chasedehan• 8 years ago

The answer is no.

But, I guess the benefit would be the 15 minutes saved at least once a week when I forget/leave/lose my badge and have to ask for a temporary at security in the morning.

olliej• 8 years ago

No. The article references plenty of existing implanted devices, but fails to acknowledge the real difference:

Pacemakers, insulin pumps, joints, brain stimulators (I forget what they’re called), the many hearing implants are all for you. Your own benefit. No one else.

An implant for your boss/company is only harmful to you. It is chosen to help your employer, not you, so the benefit doesn’t go to you. The downsides: reactions, complications, etc all fall on you. Even if they were required to pay for and/or compensate you for the harm companies are very good at not paying, and some complications are permanent (death, loss of function, scarring).

No thank you, even if my boss is willing to let me put an implant in them (which we know would never happen)

Would You Let Your Boss Put a Chip in Your Body?

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