We shall move on now to discuss body implants which can be either passive or active. The passive kind can hold data in a record or in some other form for activation purposes. For example, an RFID device can transmit by radio frequency a sequence of pulses that represent a unique number. Such a number can be pre-programmed to act like a PIN number on a credit card.
An RFID implant does not have its own battery. It has a tiny antenna and microchip enclosed in a silicon capsule and it is activated when it passes an external activation device. An entire medical record, criminal record and other data on the individual can be stored and read from the chip. A global positioning device can be embedded in order to track microchipped criminals, Alzheimer's patients or children. It can be put to use by means of a wide area network or even via the cell phone network. These types of implants can also come with embedded biosensors, for exmple, to measure glucose levels in insulin-dependent diabetes patients.
Questions of safety and well-being draw attention to the risk of creating new dependencies between practices and distinct complexes of equipment. There are privacy issues but also, if the technology is immediately grasped for 'security' and 'commercial' purposes, it does tell us something about the hierarchy of values in our societies. Thus we can ask why we buy into technologies in the name of security when they cultivate social paranoia.
Another issue is that of profiling based on implants, and subsequent decision-making that rests on identifying the location of individuals. This could lead to all mannner of unintended consequences and scenarios, including outcomes inspired by malevolence. It is not that the technology is somehow wrong. It is illogical to dismiss it as simply disruptive and undesirable. Rather, there is a case for thinking about how we all contribute to its use and deployment, why we buy it, how we use it, and what it allows us to do in terms of how and on what we allocate our time and resources ---whether in organisational settings, in the governance of the freedoms of persons, their mobilibty, and so on.