You may reject the idea of a microchip implant, but your grandchildren could embrace them, according to an Australian professor.
Katrina Michael, associate professor of the University of Wollongong's school of information systems and technology, and author of scientific paper Towards a State of Uberveillance, said subdermal chip implants in humans could be commonplace within two to three generations.
But at present, she regards the device as a threat to life and liberty because technologists and politicians largely do not know if silicon chips could harm the human body and have not determined the terms in which the devices can be used.
"You will have a new breed of tech-savvy individuals that are more adaptable to technologies. But you could forget about getting Australians to have chip implants now," Michael said.
"For instance [microchips] are problematic for motoring patients with psychological conditions. You may need to balance the patient's well being, public safety and their ability to consent to the implant."
Michael said human microchips could rid chronic illness sufferers from the need to visit hospital by sending simple data on their health to a doctor.
However, she said chip implants presently cause damage to the human body because they fuse with tissue and cause damage when removed.
"At this moment, there will be no contingency plan; it will be a life sentence to upgrades, virus protection mechanisms, and inescapable intrusion," authors, Katina and M.G Michael wrote in their paper.
She noted that some 900 US hospitals have registered for a microchip-based patient identification system to more quickly identify patients admitted to emergency....mord
Soon, keeping your head down won’t be enough to stump high-tech security cameras, thanks to Pentagon-funded researchers developing mini-cameras that can nab threats by hunting down — and scanning — their eyeballs.
A team of electrical engineers at Southern Methodist University (SMU), led by Professor Marc Christensen, first created the cameras with funding from Darpa, the Pentagon’s research agency. Called Panoptes, the devices use low-resolution sensors to create a high-res image that can be captured using a lightweight, ultra-slim camera. Because they don’t use a lens, the cameras were originally designed for miniature drone sensors and troop helmet-cams.
Only a year later, the Pentagon is giving SMU another $1.6 million, to merge the cameras with active illumination and handheld Pico projection devices. This allows photos captured on small devices to be transformed for large-format viewing. Whereas the first goal of the program was to create slim cameras with the power of a lens, the latest technology “lets us do even more than what a lens could do,” Christensen told Danger Room.
“This platform is really just the base, upon which we’ll focus on different applications,” Christensen said. “Now, we’re enhancing resolution even more, so the images are a 3-D map with even better, more accurate details.”
The new devices will yield a robust 3-D image that’ll be useful for seeing in caves and dark urban areas, and for the creation of versatile “non-cooperative” iris-detection security cameras.
Smart-Iris, the name of the new Panoptes innovation, is being developed in conjunction with SMU Professor Delores Etter, who specializes in biometric identification. It’ll eliminate problems like glare, eyelashes, dim lighting — and an unwillingness to stop and stare directly into a dedicated iris-detection camera. Instead, Panoptes devices will zero in on a face, no matter angle or movement, then narrow right into the iris. A long line of people, moving through a line, could be scanned by wall-mounted cameras and they wouldn’t even notice it was happening.
And new algorithms are being developed by Etter and colleagues to identify individuals based on segments of their iris, rather than a full frontal scan.
“Ideally, when you walk down a hallway, no matter where your head is looking, the device can grab your eyeball and detect what it needs to,” Christensen said. And where possible security and defense applications are concerned? “You can let your imagination fly with that one.”
And with this latest development, Christensen also sees widespread civilian application, as part of “the cell phone of the future.” He’d like to see the camera-projection device incorporated into phones, and says they’d be able to photograph the page of a book “down to the smallest lettering,” or detect counterfeit cash by “picking up the texture of a $20 bill.”...source
Scientists tag animals to monitor their behavior and keep track of endangered species. Now some futurists are asking whether all of mankind should be tagged too. Looking for a loved one? Just Google his microchip.
The chips, called radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, emit a simple radio signal akin to a bar code, anywhere, anytime. Futurists say they can be easily implanted under the skin on a person’s arm.
Already, the government of Mexico has surgically implanted the chips, the size of a grain of rice, in the upper arms of staff at the attorney general’s office in Mexico City. The chips contain codes that, when read by scanners, allow access to a secure building, and prevent trespassing by drug lords.
In research published in the International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, Taiwanese researchers postulate that the tags could help save lives in the aftermath of a major earthquake. "Office workers would have their identity badges embedded in their RFID tags, while visitors would be given temporary RFID tags when they enter the lobby," they suggest. Similarly, identity tags for hospital staff and patients could embed RFID technology.
“Our world is becoming instrumented,” IBM’s chairman and CEO, Samuel J. Palmisano said at an industry conference last week. “Today, there are nearly a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent. There are 30 billion radio RFID tags produced globally.”
Having one in every person could relieve anxiety for parents and help save lives, or work on a more mundane level by unlocking doors with the wave of a hand or starting a parked car -- that's how tech enthusiast Amal Graafstra (his hands are pictured above) uses his. But this secure, “instrumented” future is frightening for many civil liberties advocates. Even adding an RFID chip to a driver’s license or state ID card raises objections from concerned voices.
Tracking boxes and containers on a ship en route from Hong Kong is OK, civil libertarians say. So is monitoring cats and dogs with a chip surgically inserted under their skin. But they say tracking people is over-the-top -- even though the FDA has approved the devices as safe in humans and animals.
“We are concerned about the implantation of identity chips,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the speech, privacy and technology program at the American Civil Liberties Union. He puts the problem plainly: “Many people find the idea creepy.”
“RFID tags make the perfect tracking device,” Stanley said. “The prospect of RFID chips carried by all in identity papers means that any individual’s presence at a given location can be detected or recorded simply through the installation of an invisible RFID reader.”
There are a number of entrepreneurial companies marketing radio tracking technologies, including Positive ID, Datakey and MicroChips. Companies started marketing the idea behind these innovative technologies a few years ago, as excellent devices for tracking everyone, all the time.
Following its first use in an emergency room in 2006, VeriChip touted the success of the subdermal chip. "We are very proud of how the VeriMed Patient Identification performed during this emergency situation. This event illustrates the important role that the VeriChip can play in medical care," Kevin McLaughlin, President and CEO of VeriChip, said at the time.
“Because of their increasing sophistication and low cost, these sensors and devices give us, for the first time ever, real-time instrumentation of a wide range of the world's systems -- natural and man-made,” said IBM's Palmisano. ...more
"Our bank is the first in Europe to provide its clients with a new means to secure transactions to complement the secret code of their banking card," BPS SA Bank vice-president Krzysztof Jagielski told reporters Tuesday.
"Thanks to a system which scans blood vessels in fingers, they can withdraw cash from a bank machine," he said of a new BPS cash point installed in the capital Warsaw.
Based on "Finger Vein" technology developed by Japanese technology giant Hitachi, the bank machine which scans the unique network of minute veins in fingertips was developed by Wincor Nixdorf, a leading IT provider for retailers and retail banking.
BPS said it would install three to four of the new biometric machines in Warsaw by the end of the year, and about 200 more in the 365 banks in its network across Poland.
The new biometric machines will serve to "secure the payout of pensions at the end of the month and to guard against fraud such as 'skimming', or the theft of credit card information," Jagielski said.
Several dozen clients have already tested the system but "as with all technological changes, there must be some time for people to adapt," he added.
Although new to Europe, bank machines with the technology are already widely used in Japan....source
"If the biometric national ID card provision of the draft bill becomes law, every worker in America would have to be fingerprinted and a new federal bureaucracy -- one that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars -- would have to be created to issue cards," the organization said in a statement. "The ACLU strongly opposes the inclusion of a biometric national ID in this or any comprehensive immigration reform bill and urges senators to reject such an ID card."
In his own statement, Christopher Calabrese, ACLU legislative counsel, said: "Creating a biometric national ID will not only be astronomically expensive, it will usher government into the very center of our lives. Every worker in America will need a government permission slip in order to work. And all of this will come with a new federal bureaucracy -- one that combines the worst elements of the (Department of Motor Vehicles) and the (U.S. Transportation Security Administration). America's broken immigration system needs real, workable reform, but it cannot come at the expense of privacy and individual freedoms."
Unusual support for the ID card proposal comes from Kevin Drum, writing online for Mother Jones magazine.
Drum pointed out Democratic congressional leaders "go to great lengths to say that it is not a national ID card, and make it 'unlawful for any person, corporation; organization local, state, or federal law enforcement officer; local or state government; or any other entity to require or even ask an individual cardholder to produce their Social Security card for any purpose other than electronic verification of employment eligibility and verification of identity for Social Security Administration purposes.'
"But it's still a biometric national ID card. ... Essentially, if you want to participate in the American economy, you need this card."...more
If Arizona’s draconian new law has put immigration back in the public consciousness, the proposal for a national “biometric ID” is about to trigger nightmares in this country’s Christian id. The Democrats who drafted a new immigration law aren’t just “tone deaf,” as blogger John Cole says (although they’re certainly that.) The bill’s content and language are going to terrify and outrage lots of evangelical Christians, and could even lead to violence.
Before they try to pass this law, there are a few videos they really ought to watch.
This bill couldn't be more inflammatory in both content and language to those who take their Gospel straight … and literal. A quick listen to what's currently being preached on YouTube and AM radio today will confirm that. And generations of kids from evangelicals families recall their terror at the dictatorship and disasters shown in the End Times films known collectively as the "Rapture" series. In these films, a world dictatorship demands that everyone identify themselves and be entered into a database while being marked with an "image of the beast."
How will people who take these ideas as literal truth respond to the new law? As Congressional magazine The Hill reports, “Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure." And the "biometric ID" system has been given a name that seems to come straight out of End Times prophecy.
To some evangelicals, the “mark” or “image of the beast” predicted in Revelations has come true through computer technology (called a “Golden calf” in one of the Rapture films). Bar codes were their original object of dread, as shown in this scene from Rapture film Image of the Beast. In it a young programmer discovers the truth about bar codes after glancing down at a book called “Computer Prophecies”...more
The Democrat-sponsored proposal would have the Social Security Administration issuing biometric cards 18 months after the law is passed. “These cards will be fraud-resistant, tamper-resistant, wear resistant, and machine-readable social security cards containing a photograph and an electronically coded micro-processing chip which possesses a unique biometric identifier for the authorized card-bearer,” states the conceptual proposal for immigration reform.
The biometric information would be stored in template form on the card and not in any databases. When verifying employment eligibility the card would be inserted into a reader, the cardholder would present the biometric for matching against the template stored on the card and it would either match or not match. The proposal doesn’t specify which biometric technology would be used with the system.
The card would replace Homeland Security’s E-Verify system, which is used to verify employment eligibility now, says Walter Hamilton, chairman of the board at the International Biometric Industry Association. With the E-Verify system a prospective employee presents a Social Security number and the system tells the employer if it’s valid. It doesn’t actually check to make sure the number is associated with that individual. A biometric Social Security card would change that, linking the individual to the card.
The federal government would be required to use the system as the sole employment verification system within three years after enactment and federal contractors will be required to use the system within four years after the date of enactment. Within five years, the card would serve as the sole acceptable document to be produced by an employee to an employer for employment verification purposes.....more
Democrats pushed forward on an immigration overhaul on Thursday evening with no Republican support, as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) continues to hold out, arguing that the divisive issue will make progress on climate change legislation impossible.
The Senate is also in the middle of debating Wall Street reform, which is expected to take up the next few weeks of floor time. Reid, however, said that the chamber would be able to handle the task. "We can do more than one thing at once," he said.
The Democratic proposal includes increased money for border patrol and drug war agents, equipment, helicopters and unmanned drones. It would create a national ID -- which is dubbed a "biometric social security card." Though Democrats insist that it is not an ID card and can only be used for employment purposes.
The proposal would also include a crackdown on employers who hire undocumented workers. It works to deport some immigrants who are not in the country legally and creates a limited pathway to citizenship for others....more
Last year 59 per cent of the 37 billion transactions were done with cash, a sharp decline from the 73 per cent of transactions that were made with cash just 10 years ago.
According to the Payments Council, a trade body representing the banks, card and cash machine industry, this proportion will fall to below 50 per cent by 2015, and to 45 per cent by 2018.
The figures have alarmed some campaigners, who gave warning that banks should not encourage the march towards a cashless society.
The Way We Pay 2010 report from the Payments Council analysed in detail the revolution that has happened since 1966, the year that the first credit card was issued, followed one year later by the first cash dispenser being trialled.
It pointed out that in that time the majority of people had gone from being paid in cash at the end of the week, to being paid once a month by a direct transfer into their bank account. Just one in twenty workers were paid wages in cash last year, it calculated, a figure predicted to fall to a mere one in 50 by 2018.
Because of this trend and the rise of debit cards and direct debit payments, cash has markedly fallen from favour, the report said.
"The trend is well entrenched and will continue. Paying for things is more secure and more convenient now we don’t have to keep replenishing the stock of paper and metal we drag around. By 2018, the amount of cash we use will fall by 20 per cent after adjusting for inflation, even though our total spending will rise by perhaps 15 per cent in real terms," the report said.
"And this is probably a conservative estimate," added a spokesman, who pointed out that of the 21 billion cash transactions last year, 19 billion were for less than £15. This is the limit that people can spend on so-called contactless payment cards, a type of debit card which can be used in some corner and sandwich shops, whereby the consumer does not need to type in any PIN security code.
Mark Hunter, the Liberal Democrat MP, who has led the campaign to save the chequebook, said: "This is not something the public are asking for. It is the arrogance of the banks which is pushing for these changes....more
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Groer’s successor, criticised the handling of that scandal and other abuse cases last week after holding a special service in St Stephen’s cathedral, Vienna, entitled “Admitting our guilt”.
Schönborn condemned the “sinful structures” within the church and the patterns of “silencing” victims and “looking away”.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — who became Pope Benedict — had tried to investigate the abuses as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, according to Schönborn. But his efforts had been blocked by “the Vatican”, an apparent reference to John Paul.
Asked by The Sunday Times whether John Paul’s role in the cover-up of abuse should be investigated, Schönborn said: “I have known Pope Benedict personally during 37 years of amiable acquaintance and I can say with certainty that ... he made entirely clear efforts not to cover things up but to tackle and investigate them. This was not always met with approval in the Vatican.”
The Groer affair became public in 1995 when former pupils of an elite Catholic school accused him of sexual abuse.
After an outcry, Groer was replaced and made the prior of a convent. He was never punished and issued only a vague apology in 1998 before retreating to a nunnery where he lived until his death in 2003. Some of his victims were offered “hush money” from the church. ...more
