the Real ID Act authorizes. That database will include details on over 150 million licensed drivers. Each state must provide electronic access to all other states to information contained in its motor vehicle database. Experts say an interlinked system is a far greater security risk than a decentralized one with each state issuing ID cards according to its own rules.83
Proponents of national ID cards claim that they can be used for uses other than security: as a convenient way of receiving government benefits, for instance. This multiple use aspect of national ID cards illustrates a common process in privacy invasion: “surveillance creep.” A technology or law intended for one purpose, winds up being used for many others.
A classic example is the Social Security card. Once stamped “not for identification,” the number on your Social Security card is now required to file a tax return, open a bank account and to obtain a driver’s license. Will “smart” national ID cards be any different?
Another rationale governments use to justify national ID cards is to help crack down on black markets and the underground, tax-free economy. And with a national ID card that can also be used as a debit or credit card, governments could even eliminate a paper currency. It’s a short step from “debit/credit cards accepted here” to “Sorry, we only take debit/credit cards.”
Implantable Microchips: We Are the Borg
What’s next, you might ask – a microchip implanted in your forehead or the back of your hand? Indeed, such a device has now been perfected and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It’s also part of the Obama Health Care Plan enacted in 2010, discussed in Chapter 2. Proponents see a huge market for implantable chips as the ultimate defense against identity theft or kidnapping and a valuable convenience as well.
The VeriChip, manufactured by Applied Digital Solutions Inc., is implanted in your hand and can store personal data for identification or safety purposes.84 In 2002, the Food & Drug Administration announced the VeriChip wouldn’t be regulated if used for “security, financial, and personal identification/safety applications.”85 Despite research demonstrating the RFID device transponder could induce cancer, the FDA approved the VeriChip’s design.86 Hundreds of individuals, many of them with medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, have already been “chipped.”
More surveillance creep: the chips aren’t limited to medical information – they can contain information about anything. For instance, with an e-commerce application called “VeriPay,” rather than swipe a card or pay cash, you can buy anything with a mere wave of your hand. At the Baja Beach Club in Spain, patrons with a VeriPay microchip implant pay for cocktails with a swipe of the arm. If a swipe of the wrist requires too much effort, prototypes exist that can scan your purchases of products containing a compatible RFID (radio frequency identity) chip, and deduct the balance from your bank account, as you walk through the door.87
VeriChip has even proposed using its implantable microchips to identify immigrants and guest workers in the United States.88 This makes the widespread use of implantable microchips more politically palatable.
A nation where most humans live with implantable microchips could evolve into the ultimate police state. Microchips could replace all current forms of ID such as passports, driver’s licenses, social security, and credit/debit cards. You might not be able to withdraw money from the bank without it, receive benefits from the government without it, or buy or sell anything without it. The chip would also include data on your family history, address, occupation, criminal record, income tax information etc. At the touch of a button, your assets could be frozen, medical treatment denied, etc.
The ultimate punishment would be to have your chip deactivated. In effect, you would no longer exist, since all personal and financial interactions would require verification of identity. The chip could even be programmed to deliver an electric shock for non-compliance, or, with mind-reading software, for thinking subversive thoughts.
Most people would probably go along with the system, because of its potential to reduce crime, make medical care more accessible, keep track of children and the disabled, etc. 89
Eventually, instead of connecting your phone or laptop to the Internet, your body will become a conduit for the Information Highway. And if you don’t plug in, you risk being left behind economically and socially. Failing to plug in may become indicative of your intention to commit an illegal act. 90
Yet, this is only a hint of what might be coming. If present trends continue, not only you, but every single person or device with which you interact, will be connected to the Internet. This “Internet of things” will, quite literally, be everywhere. This phenomenon begins to approach the “collective consciousness” achieved by the fictional Borg of Star Trek fame.91
Proponents of this technology, of which implantable microchips are an integral part, claim that the benefits outweigh the risks, because their use would always be “voluntary.” But “voluntary” is not an appropriate word to describe something that might one day be required to merely exist as a human being.
An example of how “voluntary” is actually “involuntary” recently emerged from the United Kingdom. The U.K. Tory party has proposed that convicted pedophiles be offered early release in exchange for receiving microchip implants. Release would be conditional on “voluntarily” receiving an implant, as well as undergoing intensive psychotherapy. One version of the proposal would have the microchips record when released pedophiles are sexually aroused.92 Numerous U.S. states are considering similar proposals. A recent law review article concludes that in the United States, “involuntary implantation probably would not involve an unnecessary deprivation.”93
What politician has the guts to stand up in favor of the privacy rights of pedophiles? Yet, by implanting microchips into the likes of pedophiles and other persons whose proclivities disgust most people, we begin descending a slippery slope into Borg-dom.
University of Kansas research professor Jerome Dobson worries that:
We are only one technological step from placing a transponder in there that burns or stings a person if they step off a prescribed path by a meter. Or if they stay too long in one place. Or cross the path of another person they are prohibited from seeing, or if they congregate with other people. 94
Is this the future of surveillance? If it is, “privacy” will be a quaint – and meaningless – concept.
Biometric Surveillance and Its Risks
After Sept. 11, 2001, proposals were advanced for automatic face recognition systems at airports, a national ID card containing an electronic fingerprint imprint, and retinal scans when checking in at the gate. However, biometrics, in combination with the other technologies explored in this book, presents unique dangers to privacy.
Fingerprinting is one of the oldest biometric technologies, and one of the most accurate. Once reserved for suspected criminals, demands for ordinary Americans not implicated in any crime to submit fingerprints are now commonplace. Many banks now require a fingerprint to cash a non-account holder’s check and a few banks even require customers opening new accounts to provide fingerprints.95 Even a routine traffic stop
