Will we all be happily implanted with microchips in the future where our every move is monitored?
Kevin Haggerty writes in the Toronto Star that the technology exists; the only barrier is society's resistance to the loss of privacy.
Most people anticipate such a prospect with a sense of horrified disbelief, dismissing it as a science-fiction fantasy. The technology, however, already exists. For years humane societies have implanted all the pets that leave their premises with a small identifying microchip. As well, millions of consumer goods are now traced with tiny radio frequency identification chips that allow satellites to reveal their exact location.
A select group of people are already "chipped" with devices that automatically open doors, turn on lights, and perform other low-level miracles. Prominent among such individuals is researcher Kevin Warwick of Reading University in England; Warwick is a leading proponent of the almost limitless potential uses for such chips.
It will start in distant countries, criminals first, then terrorists, then carriers of contagious diseases. How soon after that before other groups, say for example, ethnic groups.
What might Hitler, Mao or Milosevic have accomplished if their citizens were chipped, coded, and remotely monitored?