electron zoo

Well, I posted about bionics/cybernetics yesterday, and today the Washington Post website features a front page article about radio-emitting ID chips being implanted into Mexican police officers. Now, this isn’t such a bad thing on it’s own — being able to find and identify cops can be very important — but companies that make these things are talking about a day when everyone will have one. They anticipate that these surgically implanted microchips will become a person’s driver’s license, credit card, ATM card, AAA card, etc. all in one.

Have these people never seen a dystopian, Orwellian-style science fiction film? No, I don’t base my entire world view and concepts of the future on science fiction, but I am imagining where in Minority Report, the biometrics of a person’s retina was used for complete identification. And if you haven’t seen that movie, I won’t be spoiling it by pointing out the gritty effect this had on street crime: people were mugged for their eyeballs.

Of course no one wants some mugger in a dark alley running off with their arm, but further, I don’t want to be identified without identifying myself. I don’t want a microchip to constantly project my whereabouts and identification any more than I want my face to be scanned and identified when I’m walking down the street. Just because I don’t have anything to hide does not mean I don’t want to hide it.

Maybe privacy is just becoming old fashioned. What a shame.