[imagesource:unsplash]

Would you allow your work to place a small microchip under your skin? Most people would respond with a firm hell no, but a US company is going ahead with the intrusive idea in what they term the ‘next step after the self-driving automobile’.

Three Square Market is offering to implant the grain-sized microchip in their employees for free.

Three Square Market are even working with a Swedish company, BioHax, to deliver the new technology, which they see as one day being simply another payment and identification method – only instead of a credit card or phone, there would be a microchip between your thumb and finger.

Far from being a means to track your whereabouts during sick leave, the microchip will be used for contactless access and even payment in workplace cafeterias. Three Square Market’s Patrick McMullan insists their employees’ right to privacy is not being violated as the chip does not have GPS capabilities, and in essence, is the same as the keycard most employees already carry with them. Except I don’t take my keycard with me when I take a sick day to go watch cricket at Newlands. Hypothetically speaking of course.

McMullan believes that more people will prefer a simple microchip as a form of identity, and for this reason they have joined BioHax in their dystopian vision.

BioHax is a Sweden-based company that specialises in chip implants or radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips. Bio-hacking has found a place in Sweden and for the last three years, there have been several people volunteering to have the implants done.

Eventually, it will replace everything you might have in your wallet – from your key fob to your credit card and ID. For now, it is just aiming to make life easier.

For now maybe.

According to Fox News, US lawmakers are not happy with the idea of getting chipped (who could blame them), and a raft of Bills are being tabled to ban, or at least control the technology. Luckily in South Africa, we struggle to implement everything, so implanting anything is something to worry about after Eskom. Watch the CEO of Three Square Market explain the tech below:

This feels way too Orwellian for my liking.

[sources:fox&bbc]