British gov't plans biochips for all

(This is NOT a satire.)

The British government announced that it will implant biochips into all its prison inmates (to start with).

The government says this will ease prison overcrowding, since it will allow prisoners to be kept at home under house curfew.

Anyone who gouges the chip from his body, or tries to interfere with its signal, will trigger a nationwide manhunt. Each chip contains complete information about the implantee.

The first chips will be skin deep, but companies plan deeper implants that can never be removed. The devices will vibrate, electroshock the implantee, or serve as a microphone to transmit conversations. They will allow each person to be tracked by GPS satellite.

England has the highest prison population per capita in Western Europe. (The USA has the highest in the world.) Most citizens are jailed on minor drug charges. Over the next six years, the British government plans to build 20,000 new cells at a cost of £3.8bn ($7.4 billion)– including three gigantic new super-jails.

The first targets will be convicted sex offenders. Then the entire prison population will be implanted, plus anyone released on parole or bail.

More than 17,000 British individuals (including suspects released on bail) are forced to wear ankle tags under curfews requiring them to stay at home up to 12 hours a day. The government says biochips will be much more convenient for prisoners. It’s a “win-win” situation for all.

The biotags are already used around the world to track pets and cattle. Now humans will join this group.

The tags are the size of two grains of rice, but carry complete personal information from birth, and allow GPS tracking. They will be jammed into the back of people’s arms with a hypodermic needle. They consist of a toughened glass capsule holding a computer chip, plus a copper antenna, and a capacitor that transmits data stored on the chip when prompted by an electromagnetic reader.

The US market leader VeriChip Corp has been selling radio tags for animals for more than a decade. It says about 2,000 of its chips have been shot into humans in more than 5,000 installations in the fields of healthcare, security, government, and industrial markets. The chips have also been used to verify VIP membership in nightclubs, automatically gaining the carrier entry – and deducting the price of their drinks from a pre-paid account.

The British company Acpo wants to compete with VeriChip.

When the chips are implanted into everyone, each time a person visits a doctor, information will be implanted into the person's chip, which will aid medical insurance companies in deciding who to cover.

Consumer privacy expert Liz McIntyre said a colleague had already proved he could "clone" a chip. "He can bump into a chipped person and siphon the chip's unique signal in a matter of seconds," she said.

Source: UK Times