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Microchip / RFID Implants: Technology & Tech News

Is their fear really so unreasonable? Although the odds may be strongly against their child ever being kidnapped, the odds are also against most children being hit by a car while riding a bike, yet responsible parents still make their children wear bike helmets. It is part of the inherent role of parenting, genetically programmed and reinforced by emotional ties, to do whatever is necessary to see that the next generation successfully survives childhood. Just because there is only a slight chance of my children getting struck by lightning doesn't mean that I let them shelter under oaks during thunderstorms.

If you have ever lived in a town where there has been a unsolved child abduction, the worst part is in the waiting and the hope. The more time that goes by the less chance there is of finding the child alive, but the parents still don't know, won't ever know until the body is found.

In my town there were two paperboy abductions in the seventies that were never solved. The parents are still investigating leads in these cases, paying money to probable con artists who claim to know or even be the long lost sons, painting lurid stories of child sex rings and worse. The risk may be minimal, but the damage lasts forever, not only for the family, but the entire community.

Although the odds are against it, these things do happen, they are not fictional or imaginary events springing solely from the fearful minds of the parents. The proper parental thought process is that a terrible thing has happened to other people's children: how can I prevent it from happening to mine?

Are these parents going overboard? I don't feel like I'm in a position to judge them, being a parent myself, sharing their concerns, and being a product of a community where children have been abducted and never, ever found. It would be my worst nightmare as a parent, even worse than having my children killed, to have them abducted and never know their fate, never know if somewhere they were alive, praying for rescue, crying for their parents. Every parent who reads the newspaper is trying to stave off this horror in some way or another.

As for those who believe the risk of abduction is so minimal that precautions such as an imbedded tracer chip border on the ridiculous, I wonder if they also stand under tall trees during lightning storms because the risk of lightning strike is so small....
 
I agree with Annasdottir - it's irrational, and IMHO rather pointless.
 
Further to my last post, what happens when the chip-implanted child reaches that age (as any normal child will) when they suddenly see the downside of having their parents know their every last move? What will happen when the child wants the chip removed and the parents refuse?
Sure you don't tempt fate by sticking your child under a tree in a thunderstorm, but neither do you permanently wrap it up in electrically-insulated clothing just on the off-chance that it may be struck by lightning.
Teach your kid some sensible precautions, teach it self-confidence and self-reliance, send it to martial arts classes. Just don't treat it like some dumb, defenceless possession that's liable to be stolen away by some passing thief. And face up to your own bloody fears instead of projecting them on the world around.
 
Tattoo Ted said:
Is their fear really so unreasonable? Although the odds may be strongly against their child ever being kidnapped, the odds are also against most children being hit by a car while riding a bike, yet responsible parents still make their children wear bike helmets.

Fraterlibre found the following stats for child abductions in the UK.

2000 = 134

2001 = 96

2002 so far = 63

Number of kids kidnapped by strangers. Definite decline, despite higher media coverage, which may in fact be due to the AMBER ALERT system, named for a kidnapped and murdered child.

I don't have the stats to hand (anyone got them?), but I suspect that the number of children injured in accidents on their bike is substantially greater than this.

People are extremely poor at understanding risks and developing an appropriate response. Warning children about "stranger danger" as has been common practice for decades is a proportional response. Implanting a chip with goodness knows what long term health risks (infection, reaction to the implant, and other complications) is not.

Looking at the cycling example again, it is good practice to wear a helmet in order to limit injury to the head in the event of an accident. A non-proportionate response would be to stop the child cycling, even in places where the child would not come into contact with other road users. (Someone I knew years ago was killed when his chain snapped, causing him to come off his bike and suffer critical head injuries, so it isn't just cars that you should be worried about.)
 
Either way, surely it's dangerous to be implanting microwave transmitters into children. We've been warned not to allow kids to use mobiles for extended periods, but this things going to be transmitting 24/7.

Considering it will use a standard phone network then we can assume it will have to have the same power as a mobile. Perhaps not the same power as a phone that is in call, this thing is not transmitting voice data, but still, it will be transmitting the same signal as a phone in idle mode. Surely there will be some sort of cumalative effect?

I guess if she keels over and dies in 10 years time, we'll all know to be more careful with our phones, if not then hurrah for mobiles. I'm sure the phone companies will be watching with interest.
 
Ah! But if our children are abducted by aliens we will at last have proof.:D
The whole idea is ridiculous, simple apparatus is readily available to businesses to detect bugging devices which would also detect and locate an active chip for abducters. Surely the only reasonable use of such an implant would be to provide specific medical data needed in an emergency such as rare blood group, drug allergies and specific illness which may need special treatment, such as epilepsy etc. currently provided by wearing bracelets and the like. No thanks!!!
 
Stu Neville said:
My elder son has autism, and as such can easily get lost as he tends to wander if unchecked (happens less these days, but we lost him for three hours once in a big open area close to home; police involved, you name it: thankfully he was found safe and well, and heading for home).

I would pay loads not to relive those three hours again.

Our other son is seven, not autistic, but has the natural curiosity of a seven year old. He occasionally (and unintentionally) wanders off too, often in huge shopping complexes, and usually when you're at a checkout behind an Estonian who wants to pay in US Dollars for some maramalade (OK, extreme example, but you know what I mean). So yes, I can see it's value.

Stu

*EDIT* I am of course, referring to the wrist-watch tracker to which I alluded in my post above. I'm not about to implant anything in my kids' heads.

Here's a link as promised (don't be put off by the advert: it's a good idea.


That looks like a good idea for autistic kids in particular. I know the boy in my class would wander off and have no thought that ppl wouldn't know where he was. His parents have dead locks on all the doors and windows. Unfortunately, you'd have to work on them actually keeping the thing on and not trying to remove it all the time.
I would imagine other kids would take it off when they didn't want their parents knowing where they were.
At least it's a better option than implanting them with a chip though!
Brings whole new meaning to "daddy or chips?"!!
 
If in time everyone were fitted with these chips, it would put the kibosh on extra marital affairs!;)

But the wristwatch device sounds useful - just think if poor little Jamie Bulger had had one, he might still be alive today . . .

It could also be useful for elderly people suffering from Alzheimer's disease, they could be tracked down when they went wandering off.

Carole
 
carole said:
But the wristwatch device sounds useful - just think if poor little Jamie Bulger had had one, he might still be alive today . . .
Jamie Bulger would still be alive today if just one of the dozen or more people who saw him being dragged around crying by those two boys had just said "Oi, what's going on?".
Expecting technology to take the place of ordinary human caring and vigilance just won't work. In fact, it will just encourage people not to 'interfere'. "Oh, it's all right" they'll think "He's wearing one of those tracker watches...."
 
Thread renamed, with Punychicken's agreement!

BTW, does anyone else get email notifications about this thread from [email protected] (inteads of the usual FTMB heading)? This is the only thread where this happens to me.
 
Annasdottir said:
Jamie Bulger would still be alive today if just one of the dozen or more people who saw him being dragged around crying by those two boys had just said "Oi, what's going on?".
Expecting technology to take the place of ordinary human caring and vigilance just won't work. In fact, it will just encourage people not to 'interfere'. "Oh, it's all right" they'll think "He's wearing one of those tracker watches...."

One of the reasons why people are reluctant to intervene is that, these days, they are likely to receive verbal, or even physical abuse for asking questions in such a situation. The thing to do, of course, if anyone is reluctant to intervene, is to call the police. But can we be sure the police will respond in time?

Carole
 
Here we have Icke's take on the whole sorry affair.


BRITISH MOTHER TO HAVE DAUGHTER MICROCHIPPED AFTER MURDER
OF HOLLY AND JESSICA BECAUSE SHE FEARS FOR HER SAFETY.

... MORE CHILDREN MURDERED MEANS MORE CHILDREN CHIPPED -
SO WHO BENEFITS FROM ALL THESE CHILD ABDUCTIONS?
YES, THEM AGAIN.
PROBLEM - REACTION - SOLUTION.


One of the other reasons why people are less willing to intervene is that due to the paedophile scare there is a reluctance for people to "interfere" in situations were children are involved. If someone, for example, were to see a small child (apparently by itself) crying in the street there is sadly a fear that any help given may be considered to be inappropriate. :(
 
chipping kids is 1984 and must be abhorrant to any parent not on Planet Janet. The watch sounds ok (at least it wont need to be surgically removed at 16) but one answer to stopping kiddy fiddlers is to DNA the male population at birth.

got mixed feelings about this one...

on one hand, since I'm never going to commit a sex crime (other than beating women off with the proverbial excrement encrusted stick), murder anyone, burgle a house etc I'd be happy to be DNA'd

is there really a human rights issue here? Why would you not want to be DNA'd if it prevents the most abhorrant crime? How could the Busies abuse a DNA database?

am I missing something?
 
From The Guardian's article in ninja's link:

"If a car is stolen, it can be fitted with a computer to enable it to be tracked - so why not apply the same principle to finding missing children?"


Better idea - just strap a computer to your child's back and they won't get far enough to go missing.
 
If a car is stolen, it can be fitted with a computer to enable it to be tracked - so why not apply the same principle to finding missing children?"

They cannot be serious. My dog has a chip but it can only be detected when they find him as it is nothing more than a complex transponder. He also has a metal disk that has my vets phone number on it. I think that car trackers need a power source to allow them to be tracked. The important thing to remember is that children as a general rule come back (no matter how hard you try to lose them :) )

I am as broad minded as the next fortean scientist, but even I balk at the idea of fitting chips into new-borns (in case they are kidnapped, swapped at birth or left on the bus). It will start with "to protect the children" and will end with every individual being tracked all the time a la Singapore

If they do try something as mad as this in the future I will hold Kevin Warwick personally responsible.
 
Im waiting to see the first kid with an imobilizer and alarm system fitted :)
 
ninja said:
Im waiting to see the first kid with an imobilizer and alarm system fitted :)

You may laugh but fitting an alarm system to a child in conjunction with the tracking device is the only way to make the tracking device useful. Imagine being able to program a 'play-zone' for your child. If the child should stray or be abducted, the alarm goes off, alerting the parent dossing (sorry, supervising!) at home and anyone in the vicinity of the child. Imagine the number of false alarms as children innocently wander off, or as they get older, attempting to meet up with their mates, skive etc.
 
chippy world

There could be a society soon of the chipped and the chipped-not

the chipped could have access to exclusive shopping malls, first class carriages, seated football stands and never need to carry money
(visa chip- that'll do nicely)
young offenders could be chipped (voluntarily) as part of a commitment to avoid reoffending
the employers of the chipped would know when they are pulling a sickie
the children of the chipped will never wander

the unchipped with metal coins in their pockets would live in freedom and dignity
and an urban unchipped ghetto disaster zone
 
An interesting piece on him from the Garudian's Bad Science colukmn (its clearly not just the preserve of peddlers of dodgy New Age remedies, and gullible journalists etc. ;) ):

The return of Captain Cyborg

Ben Goldacre
Thursday April 29, 2004
The Guardian

· Captain Cyborg is back. Professor Kevin Warwick of Reading University is a legend: this week the Independent ran a piece on his discovery that watching Richard and Judy on television for half an hour was the best thing to improve IQ test performance, and that reading a book was bad for you. Warwick was telling exactly the same story four years ago. I phoned his secretary and his research assistant to find out if he'd published this data in any journals. "Oh yes ... the Daily Mail?" Not quite what I was looking for. "The Independent?"

So are the papers right to trust him? In 1999, several broadsheets covered his warning on cyber drugs. "Law enforcement officials are bracing themselves for the introduction of virtual reality drugs which, because they are transmitted across the internet or using radio waves, can be taken without anyone ever needing to actually possess them." Warwick was quoted as saying: "The question is not whether virtual reality narcotics can be created, but how soon they can be put on the market." Buffoon, says Inman Harvey of the University of Sussex. Irresponsible, says Professor Alan Bundy of Edinburgh.

· Warwick also surgically implanted a trivial chip in his arm, which allowed sensors to detect his presence and do things like turn on lights and open doors, then romped about in the media explaining gravely that he was now a cyborg: "Being a human was OK," he said. "But being a cyborg has a lot more to offer." Bravo. It was never clear why he couldn't just carry the chip in his pocket. Before the century is out, he says, machines will take over the planet. "It's difficult to describe how frustrating it is in the field seeing this man being our spokesman," says Richard Reeve, of the AI department at Edinburgh.

· After the Soham murders he waded into the media again, saying he was going to implant a locating transmitter in an 11-year-old girl, in case she was abducted. The "chip" would cost "£20". Academic experts in mobile phone networks and animal tracking with experience in similar devices thought it was bunk (http://tinyurl.com/2mep6). Children's charities and medical ethicists said the unnecessary surgery was irresponsible. And any fool could see that a kidnapper would chop it out messily. As before, after a flurry of media coverage: nothing. Idiot, says Joanna Bryson of MIT. Unrealistic, says Professor Blay Whitby from Sussex. His experiments fail hilariously (http://tinyurl.com/3xkc2). He's obsessed with media coverage. And we can't get enough of him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1205159,00.html
 
The man is a fool if he believes he is now a 'cyborg'.
He's amazingly dim for a university professor.
 
Well, since the thread started things are getting nearer....take Blunkett's voluntary trial id cards, eventually (if successful..ha.ha) to be made compulsory. Seems more to try and stop benefit fraud than anything to do with terrrists. Current terrorist practice is to recruit from residents inside a country who already have a state identity, and what does that matter if you kill yourself in the act anyway. As already pointed out, it will eventually lead to a divided society, with total access to everything for the privileged and a wasteland for the have-nots.
As for academics, many are driven by economics, attention seeking media stunts etc. and not by the search for 'pure' scientific discovery anymore (whatever that is, Forte has plenty to say on this!).;)
 
I think we are getting this the wrong way around...

...We should be returning to the useful victorian practice of paying a babysitter £5 and never having to see your child ever again...

I, personaly, would give them to the wolves, its cheaper.
 
Mythopoeika said:
The man is a fool if he believes he is now a 'cyborg'.
He's amazingly dim for a university professor.
I think you may have hit upon two of the key ideas in dealing with Kevin. Although I'd have finished both of those sentences without the conditional clauses.
 
Mythopoeika said:
The man is a fool if he believes he is now a 'cyborg'.
He's amazingly dim for a university professor.
Someone really needs to hack into those chips of his and beat some sense into him... by his own hand.

;)
 
anome said:
I think you may have hit upon two of the key ideas in dealing with Kevin. Although I'd have finished both of those sentences without the conditional clauses.

Well, OK - he's a fool and is very dim.
I am just astounded that he got a job like that in the first place.
An ounce of commonsense is better than a ton of learning, it seems... :D
 
China to monitor bird flu with RFID

Dominique Patton / AP Food Technology | March 23 2006

An RFID tracking system designed to slow the spread of avian flu will be tested this month by China’s poultry industry, currently facing flagging demand and low prices following several outbreaks of the disease in different provinces.

The technology, developed by Canadian company Smart-tek Communications, was unveiled to government, academic and industry experts at a conference in Beijing last week.

"Everything is now in place to launch definitive testing in mid-March," said Perry Law, president of Smart-tek.

With an estimated 13 billion chickens in China, the spread of bird flu is a critical issue. Ten people have already died from the disease, according to official figures, and culls in several provinces have led to major losses for many in the industry.

The RTAC-PM ('RFID Tracking Alert Containment and Poultry Monitoring) system was designed for the livestock - and specifically poultry - industry to help governments monitor poultry movement.

“At its core, the RTAC-PM System uses the Internet to report detailed, real-time information about events in the poultry supply-chain to a central monitoring station," said Law.

This central agency can monitor the flow of product over an arbitrary area, from a small town all the way up to an entire country. The system gives instant alert notification of events that could indicate anomalies that may be caused by the onset of disease outbreak.

These events could include excessive mortality rates during growth, and unusual patterns of movement that may suggest an attempt to cover-up disease outbreaks by poultry farmers. Alerts to such events will allow the central agency to dispatch inspectors to investigate.

Information about the production cycle of each specific flock is captured and recorded at the chick producer, growing farm and processing plant. The RTAC-PM system can also track the movements of containers, cages, and trucks used to transport poultry among the various facilities involved in the production process.

Finally, it can track the finished product (both for domestic and export consumption) all the way to the consumer, providing complete traceability from egg to supermarket.

Smart-tek says it has established a relationship with its sole licensee, SES Investment (China), which will serve as the liaison with the central government, helping to implement the system upon final approval by the appropriate authorities.

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/article ... b_RFID.htm
 
Teen with medical microchip dies in Fla.

BOCA RATON, Fla. - A teen engineering prodigy who gained national attention in 2002 when he and his family received identification chip implants on live television was killed in a motorcycle accident, authorities said.

Derek Jacobs, 18, lost control of his motorcycle early Saturday and crashed into a guardrail and a pole, the Palm Beach County sheriff's office said. He was wearing a helmet.

"It was just a crazy accident of a bump or something, and he was catapulted," said his mother, Leslie Jacobs. "He had, of course, potential, because he was brilliant, and he was just a wonderful son. He wanted to make a difference in the world."

Derek was set to get his engineering degree this year after only two years at Florida International University. He wanted to be a neurosurgeon, his mother said.

At age 12, Derek became certified by Microsoft as a systems engineer. He was qualified to run corporate computer networks.

Two years later, he and his family had identity chips implanted on live television. They were the first family to get VeriChip IDs, made by Applied Digital Solutions.

Derek pushed his parents to look into the chips as a way to help store medical information for his father, who suffered a host of health problems, including cancer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061001/ap_ ... hip_family
 
Speed through the checkout with just a wave of your arm
By Valerie Elliot

Shoppers could soon pay for goods using a microchip implanted under the skin


IT MAY sound like a sci-fi fantasy but shoppers may one day be able to pay their grocery bills using a microchip implanted in their body.
The idea is already catching on with today’s iPod generation. According to research released today by the Institute for Grocery Distribution (IGD), a retail think-tank, almost one in ten teenagers and one in twenty adults are willing to have a microchip implanted to pay shop bills and help to prevent card or identity fraud and muggings.



A quick scan of the arm would connect immediately to bank details and payments could be made swiftly. Such microchips are already used in cats, dogs and horses. They are used in cattle and sheep so that consumers can trace their food from farm to plate and are also being used to help to combat drugs counterfeiting.

But now the retail industry is looking at body chips among a range of biometric payment methods, including fingerprint and iris recognition. So far the only example of a human body chip being used is at the VIP Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, where people wear bikinis and shorts and there is nowhere to carry wallets and purses.

The club offers clients a microchip, injected in the arm, which gives them access to certain areas of the club and acts as a payment method at the bar. This chip, made by the VeriChip Corporation, is a glass capsule about the size of a grain of rice, which sits under the skin. It carries a ten-digit personal number that can be linked to a person’s bank account, and has been a success at the club.

Geraldine Padbury, senior business analyst at IGD, accepts that many consumers will have concerns about their privacy, but says that teenagers, the next generation of shoppers, will have far fewer concerns about using the body chips.

She said: “With teenagers happy to use MySpace (the networking website) and blogs to share details of their private lives, there may be less concern surrounding privacy than for other generations.”

However, she believes that supermarkets will look at using fingerprint and iris recognition for the immediate future. One in five teenagers and one in nine adults in the study made clear that they would like to pay using these biometric methods. These methods were more popular than paying by mobile phone because of concerns about the high level of mobile phone theft.

There is already a pay-by-touch experiment under way at the Midcounties Co-operative in Oxford, where a finger scan is linked to a bank account. This system is used by more than 2.3 million shoppers in the US and also allows them to cash cheques in stores. Fingerprint recognition is used at Ben-Gurion airport in Israel, rather than making passengers stand in a check-in queue.

The research also gives supermarket bosses a clear warning that they will have to speed up shopping trips. In the survey, 66 per cent of teenagers and 62 per cent of adults said that they wanted less staff involvement and more self-scanning of goods. They wanted staff only to help to pack bags or fetch forgotten items.

About 16 per cent of teenagers and 12 per cent of adults wanted navigation systems on trolleys to help them round the store. Such a system is already being used at the Metro Future store in Rheinberg, near Düsseldorf. Shoppers connect their loyalty card to a computer attached to the trolley. Details are then displayed of goods purchased last time as well as special offers and where to find the items.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/art ... 43,00.html

It may have been quiet but the idea is far from dead and buried
 
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