The Opportunities and Fears of Human Microchipping

By Sarah Ghormley

Human microchipping is a growing technology that is becoming more and more common in personal life, the workplace and the corporate world, and in the advancing medical field. With the incorporation of microchips in a variety of manners there also come fears with all of these different opportunities. There will eventually be a shift in the way we view our personal freedoms in the United States and a shift within our concept of privacy if the microchips were to be distributed and used on a large scale. Privacy in America is something that has been long debated in our country’s history. Although it is not explicitly written in the Constitution, many different aspects of the Constitution mention the right to privacy and amendments have been created, the fourth amendment, to ensure that citizens “have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effect, against unreasonable searches and seizures” (1). The fourth amendment was originally intended to enforce the notion that “each man’s home is his castle”, but it has evolved in order to protect the privacy of individuals outside of their home as well (1). While the fourth amendment explicitly articulates specific things individuals are protected from, it has been further interpreted and used in other cases to expand this idea of privacy even further. The debate about whether or not the United States should adopt and incorporate a human microchip across the country causes speculation around this topic of privacy that Americans hold very highly in terms of importance in regards to freedom. Therefore, there is this changing nature in what our personal freedoms may look like if the microchip was to be used on a large scale.

The microchip on a surface level does not confine you in any way essentially meaning that your free will as a human being and as an American would still be fully intact. However, freedom and privacy go hand in hand in that we are given to freedom to live private and personal lives with little governmental surveillance or interference. There are two ways in which we can view this idea of changing the nature of our personal freedoms. The first option is by seeing it as a movement into the technologically advanced future in which humans and technology go hand in hand, literally, and are inseparable. There will come an acceptance to this technology and it will be acknowledged as a personal freedom because it wouldn’t be mandatory, therefore individuals who chose to be microchipped would have done so on their own recognizance. Thus, personal freedoms in the United States would be viewed as expanded rather than violated. The second way in which we can view this personal freedom change is as an invasion of privacy. Implanting chips in people have privacy and security implications that go beyond “cameras in public places, facial recognition, tracking of our locations, our driving habits, our spending histories, and even beyond ownership of your data” (2). This new development has the potential to give new meaning and new fears surrounding biohacking and cyber attacking. This to some people is a bigger risk that does not match the rewards that the microchips could have. While people would have the choice to be microchipped, there is an argument to be made that it is too risky and unprecedented, which in turn could violate the personal freedoms of individuals in the United States whether they were physically chipped or not. There are potential positive and negative impacts that could change personal freedoms in America, but it all depends on your view on taking technology to the next step or preserving what we already have. The video linked below touches on some of these questions regarding the improvement microchip implants could have on our lives, but also the cost of our privacy that could come with that.

While the question of privacy in relation to the human microchip remains unanswered, there is evidence to prove that the installation of the microchips would increase our pace of life by an immeasurable amount. Overtime, people have grown to be much more comfortable with using technology in different aspects of their lives. For example, “…traceable body modifications such as tattoos and piercings all the way up to the chips…is less taboo now” showing that overtime we change and evolve how we view certain things (3). Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of Americans have cochlear implants, which were once seen as an impossible and improbable notion (3). There is a trend toward putting devices in our bodies and not just for life and death situations, but for conveniences as well. This idea of convenience is what will spring the microchip into existence in America. The possibilities of what this technology could be used for to aid in our day to day lives are endless. RFID chips are what the human microchip would be made up of and these same chips are already in use in other forms such as when you swipe your debit or credit card. Using a microchip could mean that you never have to worry about leaving your wallet at home ever again because everything you need is already in your implant. Aside from simplifying paying for things, the microchip would speed up every daily process by a large amount resulting in a faster pace of life. For example, the microchips could offer easier identification including your driver's license, passport, and vaccination cards, accessible medical records at all times, the synchronization of all your technology devices, and even make things as simple as unlocking your car door or your house faster (4). There is no denying that the use of the microchips would increase our productivity because we would be spending far less time doing things that could be done with the implant.

Overall, the opportunities of the human microchip are seemingly endless. The primary debate around them being the issue of whether or not it is an invasion or privacy, but rather than it being an invasion of privacy it can be seen as a change in the way we view personal freedoms in the United States. With that, the pace of life in America would increase tremendously in nearly every aspect. While there is no way to know exactly how big of an impact microchips would have until we see it on a large scale, there is a general idea of what it would look like and having an implant would essentially be the ultimate convenience.

References

Human microchipping, the benefits and downsides. Richard van Hooijdonk Blog. (2021, March 24). Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com/en/human-microchipping-the-benefits-and-downsides/. (4)

Legal Information Institute. (n.d.). Fourth amendment. Legal Information Institute. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment. (1)

Lohrmann, D. (2021, April 29). Chip implants: The Next Big Privacy Debate. GovTech. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.govtech.com/blogs/lohrmann-on-cybersecurity/chip-implants-the-next-big-privacy-debate.html. (2)

Weiss, H. (2018, September 21). Why you’re probably getting a microchip implant someday. The Atlantic. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/09/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-microchip/570946/. (3)