Microchipping: where it’s at and why it still hasn’t gotten under our skin

By Alma Fabiani

Published Nov 21, 2019 at 11:07 AM

Reading time: 3 minutes

4595

Some of you might not remember, but August 2017 was definitely microchipping’s ‘breakthrough’. Wisconsin-based company Three Square Market had lined up its employees in its cafeteria to be implanted with microchips. Just after that, the news named the event the “chipping party” and bombarded us with futuristic tales of cashless payments and phoneless calls. We were all going to be transhuman. Back to 2019, and most of us are still microchip-free. So why are microchips still not the norm?

Let’s start with the obvious—the idea of living with a chip under your skin potentially monitoring your every move is not one that is easy to accept. After the famous chipping party, religious groups panicked, convinced that the small implants actually marked people with “the mark of the beast”, and accused Three Square Market of being the antichrist. While this sounded highly improbable, more rational worries have since then been stated and proved right.

I Got Chipped Tshirt

Microchip implants are similar to the ones we’ve started putting under livestock and our pets’ skin. In other words, the tiny bar codes have been around for a while. Kevin Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at Reading University, had already implanted a chip in his hand by 1998. Warwick wanted to show the world that it was doable, but also that microchipping was the future. To him, fusing technology with our bodies had to be the next big step. He obviously didn’t take data breaches and exploitation of labour into consideration.

So far, the few people that have been microchipped are digital-savvy people from wealthy countries. Well-educated Swedes—“chips and beer” evenings were quite big in Stockholm—do not make up the world’s population. Talking to The Guardian, Urs Gasser, executive director at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, made a very valid point about the way people reacted to the chipping party, stating that “[s]eeing employees get implanted at the workplace made people question what it means to be an employee. Are you a person being paid for your work, or are you the property of the company you work for?” These implants probably weren’t the “mark of the beast”, but they definitely reminded us of the dystopian novel 1984.

The implications that microchipping technology brings with itself are exactly what stops us from getting them. Having a chip under our skin equals increased worker surveillance for most. And, more recently, it could also mean that data collection methods could go up a notch—something that we clearly don’t need while Facebook is still around. After all, microchips could surveil us non stop, and monitor us wherever we go. Remember the nightmare that was Snapchat Map, when all your Snapchat contacts could see where you were at any time of the day? Imagine this with microchips, only this time we won’t be able to turn its signal off.

The same kind of concerns have recently been raised by lawmakers in the US. The states of Arkansas, New Jersey and Tennessee have started drafting new bills to make involuntary microchipping illegal, while Nevada has already passed its own version of the bill. The message is: feel free to microchip yourself if you want, but don’t force anyone to do the same, especially not if they’re your employees. And yet, surveillance tech still is a big issue in the US, with companies forcing their employees to wear an Apple watch constantly to monitor their health. There doesn’t seem to be that much difference between this and microchips.

To try and look at microchipping under a different light than this ethically problematic one, Screen Shot spoke to Jowan Österlund, founder and CEO of the microchipping company Biohax, and the body piercing professional that microchipped the lucky employees who attended 2017’s chipping party. Österlund, like many others, can’t ignore the risks that microchips could entail, but for him, it’s part of a good thing, “People say that [they’re scared of microchips] while they’re on Facebook, on their smartphones logged into their Google accounts, so I can’t really take that seriously. I wouldn’t want people to blindly accept any kind of new technologies, because that would be repeating the same mistakes again. If people are scared, it’s good—they get informed, and they’re not afraid anymore.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwBwvr_nCBE/

Österlund furthered his point by pinpointing the many benefits that microchips could bring to adapters, such as health-related tracking, “you could get all the information you need about your heart rate patterns, your sleeping patterns, your blood oxygenation, and breathing patterns.” According to him, most of us react that way to microchips because of the small body modification they come with. What needs to be changed, for them to be 100 per cent safe, are the regulations that have been proven to be already problematic, even without most of us having a chip implant.

Instead of panicking about microchips, our attention should be focused on demanding stronger labour regulations and data protection laws, such as Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In other words, don’t shoot the messenger. Microchips could be our society’s gamechanger—the only question is: are we ready for that kind of change?

Keep On Reading

By Eliza Frost

The swag gap relationship: Does it work when one partner is cooler than the other?

By Charlie Sawyer

Odd Muse founder Aimee Smale fights back against fast fashion controversy on TikTok

By Eliza Frost

Kylie Jenner now follows Timothée Chalamet on Instagram, but he doesn’t follow her back

By Eliza Frost

Misogyny, sexism, and the manosphere: how this year’s Love Island UK has taken a step backwards

By Abby Amoakuh

You star Madeline Brewer faces misogynistic backlash after internet brands her character unlikeable

By Charlie Sawyer

Michael Cera reveals why he turned down a role in the Harry Potter franchise

By Abby Amoakuh

Campaigners call for gamers who carry out virtual rape in the metaverse to be charged as real-life sex offenders

By Eliza Frost

Bereavement leave to be extended to miscarriages before 24 weeks

By Charlie Sawyer

Trump grants white South Africans refuge after ending legal protections for Afghans facing deportation

By Eliza Frost

Netflix’s Adolescence sweeps Emmys, with star Owen Cooper making history as youngest-ever male winner

By Eliza Frost

Bad timing? Gavin Casalegno’s Dunkin’ ad sparks backlash over actor’s alleged conservative views

By Eliza Frost

Netflix is predicting your next favourite show based on your zodiac sign 

By Charlie Sawyer

Fans express concern after Harry Potter TV series announces the casting of Harry, Ron, and Hermione

By Eliza Frost

Bad Bunny announced as halftime act for Super Bowl 2026—and conservatives aren’t too happy 

By Charlie Sawyer

Lawmakers pressure Trump to provide evidence that Venezuelan asylum seeker Andry Hernández Romero is still alive

By Eliza Frost

Black cat boyfriends are in to replace golden retriever boyfriends, but are they just emotionally unavailable men in disguise?

By Eliza Frost

Why is Taylor not Team Conrad in The Summer I Turned Pretty?

By Eliza Frost

Everyone’s posing like Nicki Minaj: the TikTok trend explained 

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Could the next pope be Black? Peter Turkson’s papal bid could rewrite over 1,500 years of Vatican history

By Eliza Frost

How Jet2holidays and Jess Glynne became the sound of the summer