RFID Implant: Want one?

This week's Christian View Symposium asks about this news story about medical RFID chips.

Each week over at Cross Blogging, you can find a new question in the Christian Views Symposium category. Once again, you do not have to be a professing Christian or anything else to answer the question! The questions are often thought-provoking and interesting -- feel free to join in each week with your own answers on your own blog or in the comments at Cross Blogging.

The questions, based on the news article linked above:

Would you want this chip implanted in you?
Do the benefits outweigh the privacy concerns?

Ok, first question first:

Would you want this chip implanted in you?

No. Ok, I'm done with that question, right?

Why? Primarily because of the chip's own supporter's reasons:

Silverman says the medical chips are meant for five groups of patients:

—People with other implanted medical devices, such as defibrillators

—Heart patients, especially patients who have stents in one or more blood vessels

—People with diabetes

—Memory-impaired patients, such as people with Alzheimer’s disease

—Patients who need frequent medical care

That's not me. I don't fit into any of those categories, so I absolutely do not have a need for the chips. I cannot really answer the question based on the hypothetical "what if I had one of those conditions," because I don't.

So no, I don't want one of the chip, mainly because I have absolutely zero need for one, and there would be no benefits at all to me to have one. Next question.

Do the benefits outweigh the privacy concerns?

Interesting. What privacy concerns? One person in the article complained about "spam" from the chip? Apparently this person is pretty darn clueless about the chip, despite having one! Currently the chip only has a 16-digit number: that's all!

So yes, Mr. Halamka, I've got your number: 7628832398711287. Now I'm going to send spam to you at 7628832398711287. Sure, whatever.

Another person complains that they are afraid the "wrong person" might get access to your information from that chip -- like your employer, insurance agency, or police. Hello people, your insurance company already knows quite literally EVERYTHING about your medical records -- in some cases even MORE than the hospitals, because the insurance company likely has an entire history on you.

And your employer? Your insurance company, whom your employer pays, will tell the employer anything they already need to know.

Other people? So you think someone will scan this 16-digit id from you and then get access to your records? To get access to your records, they'll need access to the computers that store those records -- and if they have that access NOW, they don't need your 16-digit id, they just need your name! In a way, this could potentially make records MORE secure, not less!

But yet, The American People are deeply, deeply suspicious about such things and very much like their (mostly non-existent) privacy. So this will be a hard sell. However, if you want to make this project fail very quickly, just add one ingredient: government.

If government stays OUT of this system, the free market will likely take it and it might work. As soon as the government starts mandating these insertions, the system is bound to fail.

Thanks for asking, Lennie.

Posted by: Ogre at 12:00 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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