It doesn't hurt, much, they say - about the same as having an injection. In this case, a small tube, about the size of a grain of rice, containing a tiny radio-frequency-identification (RFID) chip is injected into the fleshy part of your hand between the thumb and forefinger. It's the same kind of chip you'll find on your credit card, except that you're unlikely to lose it because it's inside your body.
A vending machine company called Three Square Market, based in Wisconsin, has become the first company to implant identity chips into its workers - although this isn't as bad as it sounds (or maybe it's worse) because they volunteered for it. In fact 50 out of the company's 85 employees chose to have the implants.
That's right, they chose to have them. No doubt, they were compelled by the convenience factor of not having to carry a card (it contains all the information that would be on the card), or keys (just swipe their hand over the electronic door lock), or money (the chip allows them to use the company's vending machines), or remember any passwords (they can use it to log on to the computers), and many other benefits besides, I'm sure.
Even so, I wonder if I myself would have been among the thirty five who chose NOT to have them. Actually, I'm pretty darn certain that I would have been among them. I'd go as far as to say that if anybody wanted to implant an identity chip into me, they'd have to catch me first and then hold me down by force, in order to get me to comply.
Now, it must be noted that these chips are removable. They say it's like pulling out a big splinter - which is sort of comforting to know, although if everybody is going to be walking around with these in the near future (as the Swedish company BioHax which produces them, claims we will), I would worry about what being robbed would be like.
Also, these chips aren't GPS enabled, so you won't be tracked with it - unless of course it's connected to your smartphone and all of your phone's tracking apps - which it no doubt would be. For convenience, of course - and for many other applications, I'm sure, as yet to be invented. You can just imagine, I'm sure, how useful something like that could be.
So, I'd like to conduct a survey, out of curiosity. I would like to know what (if anything, short of use of physical force) would compel YOU to get an identity chip implant like this? Would you be the first in line (like the majority of Three Square Market employees) or would you run a mile before they got anywhere near you with that thing (like me)?