Are ‘Brain Chips’ the Future of Business?

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Are 'Brain Chips' the Future of Business? | Future Business

Laws

The use of cybernetic technologies has already raised some of these ethical and legal questions. The study Chipping Away Employee Privacy: Legal Implications of RFID Microchip Implants for Employees by the National Law Review declared that, “with powerful technology comes potential for abuse.” 

U.S. states such as California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin have taken on statutes addressing human microchip implantation, with California and Missouri explicitly addressing this in the employment context.

California Civil Code section 52.7(a) provides that a person shall not require, coerce, or compel any other individual to undergo the subcutaneous implanting of an identification device.  “Identification device” means “any item, application, or product that is passively or actively capable of transmitting personal information, including, but not limited to, devices using radio frequency technology.”

Missouri Rev. Stat §285.035(1.) likewise asserts that “[n]o employer shall require an employee to have personal identification microchip technology implanted into an employee for any reason.”  The law clarifies “personal identification microchip technology” as “a subcutaneous or surgically implanted microchip technology device or product that contains or is designed to contain a unique identification number and personal information that can be noninvasively retrieved or transmitted with an external scanning device.”

To Implant or not to Implant

Implantable microchips hold great potential for the future. The capability of these chips to store key information regarding payment details, GPS, medical history, security codes etc. means that it is likely that an increased number of businesses will be attracted by the RFID technology. The improvements in efficiency and cost-saving benefits will be too good to miss for some, assuming that improvements in data security can evolve to make certain that digital data is secure.

Implanted subcutaneous RFID technology is on the cusp of becoming practical and acceptable – one can imagine early adopters deciding that many of the functions of a smartphone can be replaced by a simple injected device. The next step, wiring more advanced technology into the brain, is more problematical – but as Kevin Warwick told Wired, “we ultimately may need to place implants nearer to the brain – into the spinal cord or onto the optic nerve, where there is a more powerful setup for transmitting and receiving specific complex sensory signals”. Then he sees all sorts of possibilities for implants that could “open up a whole new range of senses…but what if we fed infrared signals into the nervous system, bypassing the eyes? Would I be able to learn how to perceive them?”

He says he can imagine that “Linking up in this way could allow for computer intelligence to be hooked more directly into the brain, allowing humans immediate access to the Internet…I can envision a future when we send signals so that we don’t have to speak. Thought communication will place telephones firmly in the history books.”

So, whether there are immediate gains to be made by considering the uses of ‘brain chips’ it would be foolish to think that the technology would not make profound changes to life, culture and business in the not-so-distant future.

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