I saw a report on CNN on saturday morning about the use of microchips in soldiers in Iraq to prevent them from being lost (as in the still missing 2 soldiers). I tried a quick search to find the story online but to no avail:
Company trying to get under soldiers’ skin
(Courtesy photo/VeriChip Corp.)
Shown is the microchip by VeriChip Corp. David Francis and Bill Myers, The Examiner
2006-08-21 09:00:00.0
Current rank: # 2,057 of 4,458
WASHINGTON -
A microchip company with powerful political connections is lobbying the Pentagon for the right to implant chips under the skins of the nearly 1.4 million U.S. military personnel.
VeriChip Corp., which is based in Florida and planning to offer its stock to the public soon, has been one of the most aggressive marketers of radio frequency identification chips. Company officials have touted the chips as versatile, able to be used in a variety of situations such as helping track illegal immigrants or giving doctors immediate access to patient’s medical records.
Now the company is “in discussions” with the Pentagon, spokeswoman Nicole Philbin said. She added that VeriChip wants to insert the chips under the skin of the right arms of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen. The idea is to be able to scan an arm and obtain that person’s identity and medical history.
“The potential for this technology doesn’t just stop at the civilian level,” Philbin said.
VeriChip hopes that the chips will replace the metal dog tags that have been worn by U.S. military personnel since 1906.
The company has political muscle in the form of Tommy Thompson. A former secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Thompson is a partner at the lobbying law firm of Akin Gump and is a director of VeriChip.
Thompson said he’s sure that the chip is safe and that no one — not even military personnel, who are required by law to follow orders — will be forced to accept an implant against his or her will. He has also promised to have a chip implanted in himself.
But reached for comment Friday, he wouldn’t say when he was going to have the implant.
“I’m extremely busy and I’m waiting until my hospitals and doctors are able to run some screens,” he said.
The technology is not foreign to the Pentagon. The Department of Defense spent $100 million on similar chips that track supplies and has also attached microchips to dog tags.
But the idea of implanting the chips in live bodies has some veterans’ groups and privacy advocates worried.
“It needs further study,” said Joe Davis, a retired Air Force major and a spokesman for the D.C. office of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Liz McIntyre, author of a book critical of the chips, said that VeriChip is “a huge threat” to public privacy.
“They’re circling like vultures for any opportunity to get into our flesh,” McIntyre said. “They’ll start with people who can’t say no, like the elderly, sex offenders, immigrants and the military. Then they’ll come knocking on our doors.”
The chip also is drawing attention from Congress.
“If that is what the Defense Department has in mind for our troops in Iraq, there are many questions that need answers,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in an e-mail to The Examiner.
“What checks and balances, safeguards and congressional oversight would there be?” Leahy wrote. “What less-invasive alternatives are there? What information would be entered on the chips, and could it endanger our soldiers or be intercepted by the enemy?”
The company is not so sure about the technology, either. According to company documents, radio frequencies in ambulances and helicopters could disrupt the chips’ transmissions.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, VeriChip also said it was unsure whether the chip would dislodge and move through a person’s body. It could also cause infections and “adverse tissue reactions,” the SEC filing states.
But Philbin downplayed the danger of the chips.
“It’s the size of a grain of rice,” she said. “It’s like getting a shot of penicillin.”
dfrancis@dcexaminer.com bmyers@dcexaminer.com Examiner
Microchips implanted in Mexican officials
Attorney general, prosecutors carry security pass under their skin
By Will Weissert
The Associated Press
Updated: 9:21 p.m. ET July 14, 2004
MEXICO CITY - Security has reached the subcutaneous level for Mexico's attorney general and at least 160 people in his office -- they have been implanted with microchips that get them access to secure areas of their headquarters.
It's a pioneering application of a technology that is widely used in animals but not in humans.
Mexico's top federal prosecutors and investigators began receiving chip implants in their arms in November in order to get access to restricted areas inside the attorney general's headquarters, said Antonio Aceves, general director of Solusat, the company that distributes the microchips in Mexico.
Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha and 160 of his employees were implanted at a cost to taxpayers of $150 for each rice grain-sized chip.
More are scheduled to get "tagged" in coming months, and key members of the Mexican military, the police and the office of President Vicente Fox might follow suit, Aceves said. Fox's office did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
A spokeswoman for Macedo de la Concha's office said she could not comment on Aceves' statements, citing security concerns. But Macedo himself mentioned the chip program to reporters Monday, saying he had received an implant in his arm. He said the chips were required to enter a new federal anti-crime information center.
"It's only for access, for security," he said.
The chips also could provide more certainty about who accessed sensitive data at any given time. In the past, the biggest security problem for Mexican law enforcement has been corruption by officials themselves.
Chips read by RFID scanners
Aceves said his company eventually hopes to provide Mexican officials with implantable devices that can track their physical location at any given time, but that technology is still under development.
The chips that have been implanted are manufactured by VeriChip Corp., a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions Inc. of Palm Beach, Fla.
They lie dormant under the skin until read by an electromagnetic scanner, which uses a technology known as radio frequency identification, or RFID, that's now getting hot in the inventory and supply chain businesses.
Scott Silverman, Applied Digital Solutions' chief executive, said each of his company's implantable chips has a special identification number that would foil an impostor.
"The technology is out there to duplicate (a chip)," he said. "What can't be stolen is the unique identification number and the information that is tied to that number."
Erik Michielsen, director of RFID analysis at ABI Research Inc., said that in theory the chips could be as secure as existing RFID-based access control systems such as the contactless employee badges widely used in corporate and government facilities.
However, while those systems often employ encryption, Applied Digital's implantable chips do not as yet. Silverman said his company's system is nevertheless safe because its chips can only be read by the company's proprietary scanners.
Thousands sold to distributors worldwide
In addition to the chips sold to the Mexican government, more than 1,000 Mexicans have implanted them for medical reasons, Aceves said. Hospital officials can use a scanning device to download a chip's serial number, which they then use to access a patient's blood type, name and other information on a computer.
The Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve microchips as medical devices in the United States.
Still, Silverman said that his company has sold 7,000 chips to distributors worldwide and that more than 1,000 of those had likely been inserted into customers, mostly for security or identification reasons.
In 2002, a Florida couple and their teenage son had Applied Digital Solutions chips implanted in their arms. The family hoped to someday be able to automatically relay their medical information to emergency room staffers.
The chip originally was developed to track livestock and wildlife and to let pet owners identify runaway animals. The technology was created by Digital Angel Corp., which was acquired by Applied Digital Solutions in 1999.
Because the Applied Digital chips cannot be easily removed -- and are housed in glass capsules designed to break and be unusable if taken out -- they could be even more popular someday if they eventually can incorporate locator capabilities. Already, global positioning system chips have become common accouterments on jewelry or clothing in Mexico.
In fact, in March, Mexican authorities broke up a ring of used-car salesmen turned kidnappers who were known as "Los Chips" because they searched their victims to detect whether they were carrying the chips to help them be located.
AP Technology Writer Brian Bergstein in New York contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5439055/
