Mexicans get chipped over kidnapping fears.

This is how it begins. An incident is capitalized on and the government and big business preys on fear to inroad personal liberties as well as marketing worthless technologies. In this article, submitted by Shaun Saunders, he notes: Mallcity 14 nonsense and hysteria...(i.e., using fear to sell) . From NewScientist Tech, Affluent Mexicans worried by soaring kidnapping rates are spending thousands of dollars to implant tiny transmitters under their skin. Kidnapping jumped almost 40% between 2004 and 2007 in Mexico, (which) ranks with conflict zones like Iraq and Colombia as one of the worst countries for abductions. Detractors say that the chip is little more than a gimmick that serves no real security purpose. The company injects the crystal-encased chip, the size and shape of a grain of rice, into clients' bodies .... A transmitter in the chip communicates with a larger GPS-enabled device carried by the client... That gadget reports its location to the company when the owner presses a panic button, something the device could arguably do without an under-skin chip. Consumer privacy activists (says) the chip is a flashy, overpriced gadget that only identifies a person and cannot locate someone without another, bigger GPS. Combined the devices "offer them a false sense of security which is exactly what this is," says consumer activists.
<- NewScientist Tech ->

Prisoners to be "chipped"

Shaun Saunders sends in an article from the Independant, an online magazine in the UK.
He prefaces the article with this comment:

Somewhere past tomorrow, where private thoughts are dangerous, and prisons don't have bars, is... Mallcity 14...

Here is a cut from the article:

(Officials) are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails. Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals. The tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews.

Click here for the complete article

Totalitarian tech update

Cyber-utopian Cory Doctorow ponders: Is there a totalitarian urge embedded in our new technologies? Listen to his Leonardo Lecture at Simon Fraser University in Canada. This

"Many of us dreamed that computers, and later the Internet, would lead to an unstoppable burst of freedom. " writes Alex Smith on Ecoshock "Now we see people pushing RFID tracking chips for all our kids, cameras on every street corner, and secret rooms in AT&T to record all our Net activities."/

VeriChip to implant RFID in FL. alzheimer patients

Shaun A. Saunders sent this in saying, "I predicted this in MallCity 14"
I read the book, and this is only the start. For a piece of fiction, it is hitting way to close for comfort! (pac)

The Delray Beach, Fla.-based company VeriChip Corp. has announced plans to implant 200 Alzheimer's patients in Palm Beach County with radio-frequency identification chips as part of a pilot study to test the new technology. According to VeriChip's CEO Scott Silverman, the VeriMed chip will eventually provide peace of mind to the families of Alzheimer's patients by providing a safety net in case a patient should get lost. The chip is not a GPS device, Silverman emphasized, and cannot be used to track people in whom it is implanted. All the participants in the two-year study are volunteers, and Silverman expressed pleasure with the study's reception so far.

The article is and should be a warning of things to come. The cancer scare is obviously not putting off too many plans.

Chip Implants Linked to Animal Tumors

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients' medical records almost instantly. The FDA found "reasonable assurance" the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005's top "innovative technologies."

But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.

The transponders were the cause of the tumors," said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.

Leading cancer specialists reviewed the research for The Associated Press and, while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people.

AP Photo/Steve Mitchell

Senate blocks mandatory ID implants in employees

Tackling a dilemma right out of a science fiction novel, the state Senate passed legislation Thursday that would bar employers from requiring workers to have identification devices implanted under their skin. State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) proposed the measure after at least one company began marketing radio frequency identification devices for use in humans. The devices, as small as a grain of rice, can be used by employers to identify workers. A scanner passing over a body part implanted with one can instantly identify the person.

China Enacting a High-Tech Plan to Track People

It looks like AT&T is gearing up for more than just selling the American public out to the NSA.
Check this out! I found the link on Boing Boing. This stuff just isn't going to go away. What do you think Shaun?

Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.

Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.

Chips: High tech aids or tracking tools?

I just had to put this up. The article goes on a bit longer with a bit more informaton, however the point here is that just because it was in a science fiction novel a couple of years ago, don't mean it's still fiction. If you thought it was distressing to read about it then, think of how it should frighten now that it is being used now as you read this! (The book I speak of is in fact Shaun Saunders book Mallcity 14)

CityWatcher.com, a provider of surveillance equipment, attracted little notice itself -- until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms. The "chipping" of two workers with RFIDs -- radio frequency identification tags as long as two grains of rice, as thick as a toothpick -- was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said. News that Americans had, for the first time, been injected with electronic identifiers to perform their jobs fired up a debate over the proliferation of ever-more-precise tracking technologies and their ability to erode privacy in the digital age.

American Express to install spy chips in their credit cards

Credit card provider American Express has applied for a patent related to RFID devices.

That patent application, titled "Method and System for Facilitating a Shopping Experience," describes a Minority Report (or MallCity 14) style blueprint for monitoring consumers through RFID-enabled objects, like the American Express Blue Card.

According to the patent, RFID readers called "consumer trackers" would be placed in store shelving to pick up "consumer identification signals" emitted by RFID-embedded objects carried by shoppers. These would be used to identify people, track their movements, and observe their behavior.

In response to concerns expressed by consumer protection groups like CASPIAN, American Express also promised that it would make a chip-free version of its credit card available to concerned consumers who ask for it.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders