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Britons 'could be microchipped like dogs in a decade'
Last updated at 00:22am on 30.10.06
Experts predict that humans could soon have ID chips implanted under the skin
Human beings may be forced to be 'microchipped' like pet dogs, a shocking official report into the rise of the Big Brother state has warned.
The microchips - which are implanted under the skin - allow the wearer's movements to be tracked and store personal information about them.
They could be used by companies who want to keep tabs on an employee's movements or by Governments who want a foolproof way of identifying their citizens - and storing information about them.
The prospect of 'chip-citizens' - with its terrifying echoes of George Orwell's 'Big Brother' police state in the book 1984 - was raised in an official report for Britain's Information Commissioner Richard Thomas into the spread of surveillance technology.
The report, drawn up by a team of respected academics, claims that Britain is a world-leader in the use of surveillance technology and its citizens the most spied-upon in the free world.
It paints a frightening picture of what Britain might be like in ten years time unless steps are taken to regulate the use of CCTV and other spy technologies.
The reports editors Dr David Murakami Wood, managing editor of the journal Surveillance and Society and Dr Kirstie Ball, an Open University lecturer in Organisation Studies, claim that by 2016 our almost every movement, purchase and communication could be monitored by a complex network of interlinking surveillance technologies.
The most contentious prediction is the spread in the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.
The RFID chips - which can be detected and read by radio waves - are already used in new UK passports and are also used the Oyster card system to access the London Transport network.
For the past six years European countries have been using RFID chips to identify pet animals.
Already used in America
However, its use in humans has already been trialled in America, where the chips were implanted in 70 mentally-ill elderly people in order to track their movements.
And earlier this year a security company in Ohio chipped two of its employees to allow them to enter a secure area. The glass-encased chips were planted in the recipients' upper right arms and 'read' by a device similar to a credit card reader.
In their Report on the Surveillance Society, the authors now warn: "The call for everyone to be implanted is now being seriously debated."
The authors also highlight the Government's huge enthusiasm for CCTV, pointing out that during the 1990s the Home Office spent 78 per cent of its crime prevention budget - a total of £500 million - on installing the cameras.
There are now 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain and the average Briton is caught on camera an astonishing 300 times every day.
This huge enthusiasm comes despite official Home Office statistics showing that CCTV cameras have 'little effect on crime levels'.
They write: "The surveillance society has come about us without us realising", adding: "Some of it is essential for providing the services we need: health, benefits, education. Some of it is more questionable. Some of it may be unjustified, intrusive and oppressive."
Yesterday Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, whose office is investigating the Post Office, HSBC, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland over claims they dumped sensitive customer details in the street, said: "Many of these schemes are public sector driven, and the individual has no choice over whether or not to take part."
"People are being scrutinised and having their lives tracked, and are not even aware of it."
He has also voiced his concern about the consequences of companies, or Government agencies, building up too much personal information about someone.
He said: "It can stigmatise people. I have worries about technology being used to identify classes of people who present some kind of risk to society. And I think there are real anxieties about that."
Yesterday a spokesman for civil liberties campaigners Liberty said: "We have got nothing about these surveillance technologies in themselves, but it is their potential uses about which there are legitimate fears. Unless their uses are regulated properly, people really could find themselves living in a surveillance society.
"There is a rather scary underlying feeling that people may worry that these microchips are less about being a human being than becoming a barcoded product."
Reader views (25)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
I am a backslidden christian but after reading this think the bible is possibly speaking the truth with all it's prophecies. I would never be chipped or let my children. I would rather be dead.
- Rachel Weston, Solihull West Midlands UK
Two CIA agents used medical sabotage to inject me with RFID chips. This happened in July 1996 after I reported that $40 million dollars was missing from the accounts of a British -CIA - Special Operations from where I had worked for five years as an academic employee with high evaluations.
I have become the target of a state sponsored program of violence.
I am prevented from publicizing the gross abuse , which has permanently mutilated me. The British CIA apparatus is putting RFID chips in people who report their crimes. i
- Melanie Bloodgood, Portland, Oregon U.S.A.
It looks as if ID cards are part of a 'stepping stones approach' to implementing micro chipping the entire UK population. Our society is a key player in this scheme because we are highly reactional as a population to events. You only have to listen to the radio 'phone ins' to realise that. 'Problem-reaction-solution' seems to be the modus operandi, so that we demand and accept that something must be done. Many people will no doubt try to resist micro chipping but a way will be found of seducing and frightening people into complying.
- Mark Glover, Warrington
Some chips will be implanted under the skin on foreheads, so it can be real that they are going to be placed on the brain somehow. This is the "the mark of the Beast", and Chazah, many people believe this is stupid and won't happen even here in Hungary! All of them are wrong, and dull that's what the Beast needs to spread his "mark".
- Christian Balla, Budapest, Hungary
Wait until we hear the standard clichés like 'If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about', a mantra for some people the world over. The increase in paedophile cover stories and terror propaganda will make it very easy for the government to justify this and the travesty is that people will welcome it with open arms. Here's to a marginal society in 2012...
- Jacob Dominiguez, Twickenham
Eventually the chip will be placed in the brain and you will become a zombie, similar in function to characters in The Matrix. You can be made to Do manual labour but you will think you are elsewhere because the technology is coming where your whole reality can be influenced by these chips. If you take these chips, you deserve what you get. Simple.
- John Ashcroft, Birmingham UK
Knew this was coming for the past 20yrs! Hundreds of Christians here have been warning people for longer [and thousands more over the world] - not many listened, thought they were a joke! Now it is becoming a reality. You will be a prisoner without walls, because they will even know how many times a day you have gone to the toilet in your own house! If we refuse to take the chip, we will not be able to buy or sell anything! It's all part of this plan called "The New World Order" - don't be fooled or ignorant of all this, study it up and find out what the New Age is all about and where its roots come from.
- Chazah, Norkem Park, South Africa
I do not care how the UK government dress it up, I will never accept being microchipped like an animal, if that means having to survive outside the system so be it. Be warned, if you do accept it, it will just be the start of all your rights and humanity being stripped away. The war against terror is bogus, I wish people would wake up and see through the constant lies being fed to them in the media, unfortunately by the time they do it will be too late.
- Caroline Smith, Enfield UK
The religious aspects of this are my concern. I refuse to be implanted due to my religious beliefs. They may as well mark you with a 666 because that's what it is.
If that isnt enough, no one needs to know my movements. Why do they want to know? I am already on a camera 250 times a day from all over and that is privacy invasion enough thank you. I work, I pay my taxes, I obey the laws, now leave me alone. I don't need some jackoff seeing how many times I go to the restroom, or asking me why I stood in front of a building for X amount of minutes or worse yet, knowing my medical wellbeing or, god forbid, be able to terminate me via remote control.
It's crazy and it's not for me no matter how much better they say your life will be with it. You don't want it!
- Blain Kelner, Boston, USA
You will have to kill me before I would ever accept a chip to ID me. That's simple. This is my line in the sand.
- Joe, UK
The Bible beat George Orwell to the punch by about 2,000 years. A lot of people have ridiculed the "mark of the beast" that the book of Revelation talks about, but it looks more and more like it could be reality in the form of an implanted microchip.
- Tim Callahan, Miami, Florida USA
I think it is great. I don't see what people are complaining about. If we put chips in people, then we can easily capture the terrorists and protect our citizens from harm. I mean chipping children should go without saying. There are kidnappers out there and we could use a GPS tracking system to locate them and rescue them. But adults might be tracked as well. Adults can be kidnapped and we could find them and rescue them. Then we could extend the chip to not only relay vital statistics about the person that the chip is in, but also all of the people that the person comes in contact with. So the woman that is raped... her chip would relay back who the raper was and we could catch him. Anybody that doesn't want to get a chip we could strongly encourage them and if they persist... well they must be a nefarious person and thus, we should ban them from the society. I don't think that we want them around anyway.
For my pound, I say more cameras and implant the chips. Where do I sign up?
- Darth , Tattooine
You will never have to stand in a bread line if your have your own food.
You will never have to be microchipped if you have your own food.
They won't come looking for you to do it. You will go to them, and it will
be a requirement to obtain your bread and rice.
Food is the weapon used to control the people in a socialist state.
Perhaps the Mormans and the Amish know something about government that you have forgotten.
- Don, Yelm Washington
How is this really any different to the tatoos the Jewish people were given during the Holocust?
- Cindy, Gettysburg
Since Prime Minister Blair was first prime minister in 1997, this obviously means that the microchip is controlled by former US President Bill Clinton.
- Danny, London, UK
What has happened to the UK? It sounds more and more like North Korea every day.
- Colin, San Francisco, USA
This article should make bigger headlines but it probably won't. Of all the technologies at our disposal, this one poses the greatest threat to freedom and personal liberty.
As an RF engineer I have played with these little gismos and the things you can do with them are phenomonal. For example, the same technology is used to code buried cables 35 feet in the ground that can be read by a receiver on the ground.
I also have seen them be used on dogs where the dog itself could be scanned and the data it carried could be downloaded from over 50 feet away.
So regardless of the claims that these little devices are "short range" and do not provide a big security threat to the individual who has one implanted in them, with the right equipment they can be read from much greater distances than the companies advertise and, to me, have a great potential of abuse.
Most of the cards already implanted with RFID chips in them contain 32 to 64 kilobytes of information. A lot of personal data can be easily stored and downloaded from a 64 K chip without the persons knowledge.
And we are worried about the government monitoring our phone calls to nab suspected terrorists? Does anyone else but me see the potential problem here?
- Dave Hardesty, Tracy USA
Seems like this RFID microchip could save many lives in the healthcare/medical fields!
- Steve, London
...so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
- Tibor Warski, Toronto
And guess who they'll make pay for it!
- Sarah, London
It is as they say a "slippery slope", first one chip then a whole order. Fish and vinegar will be certain to follow.
- J Chither Mugg, USA
George Orwell's real name was actually Eric Blair.
- Squiz, Islington
So far we have lost the right to trial by jury, freedom of speech, the right to privacy in our homes without a court warrant and now we are losing are freedom of movement.
Surely the citizens of the USSR had more freedom before the fall of communism.
- Graham, Reading, England
This illustrated perfectly one of Blair's few great successes in government; subduing the entire population of Britain into a seething mass of apathetic guinea pigs prepared to accept almost ANYTHING without complaint (including the introduction of a new tax on a daily basis).
This Governement has systematically removed almost every freedom once taken for granted by the citizens of this country with barely a wimper, so the fitting of RFID chips to the entire population would a fitting epitaph for this deeply fascist government.
Presumably the only reason students aren't at the forefront of protest against these insane proposals is because they can't afford the top-up fees to go to university in the first place.
And that leaves Blair to wrap things up by introducing the one new tax he has not yet thought of: a tax on people who write letters of complaint to newspapers about his government.
- Jamesverdonk, London
George Orwell, whose real name was, believe it or not, George Blair, was spot on in his predictions of the all-controlling influence of Big Brother. The only thing he got wrong was the year. Tony Blair already has a microchip installed in his brain so that when he opens his mouth we hear, in effect, his master's voice from across the pond.
- John Barker, Prestbury, UK
