Forget RFID: you’ve already been microchipped
In July of 2017, Wisconsin-based company Three Square Market poked the conspiracy-theory bear with the announcement of a voluntary microchip program for employees. Nestled comfortably between the thumb and index finger, the rice-grain sized chip enables employees to interact with compatible technology around the office while tackling previously daunting tasks like entering the building and paying for a can of Coke.
As expected, some conspiracy theorists converged on the news as the dawn of the “tech-pocalypse.” It does seem like worthy fodder for the most cynical, considering the story feels more like the beginning of a Black Mirror episode than a welcomed technology among eager workers (or at least a well-planned publicity stunt gone viral).
For the less tin-hatted, the story is somewhat alarming but not as dire: Three Square Market’s CEO Todd Westby stressed that the chip was completely voluntary, and 50 of their 80 employees decided to undergo the painless implantation without worry.
“I think they did it mainly because they were informed and told exactly what it can do and can’t do.” Westby said. And after all, it’s just a vending machine company in small-town America, right?
But wherever you fall on the scale of one to InfoWars, if you’re reading this, it’s too late. We’ve already been microchipped. And we implanted ourselves.
In an interview, Westby suggests, “Your cell phone does 100 times more reporting of data than does an RFID chip.” This is true, and perhaps the most starling realization is how much information we freely supply in exchange for interconnectivity and convenience.
As humans, we have an instinctive need to feel connected and have become a network of sharers with a podium to express every emotion possible. We also share our new jobs, birthdays, weddings, graduations, family deaths, vacations, breakups, and every other imaginable life event. Be it for validation, self-fulfillment, entertainment or the like, our public displays are creating sensitive personality maps that are useful to both public and private sectors.
Besides what we share on social media platforms, the convenience of being able to store and access private information centrally on our phones is, well, too convenient to pass up. Bank and credit card information, passwords, health data, and even fingerprints can and are being housed on our smart devices. Apple is preparing to include facial recognition software with its next suite of iPhones.
We also take notes, make reminders and to-do lists, set alarms, map our destinations, and take pictures and videos with a series of thumb-taps. For many, a large portion of daily activities that once required physical objects have been replaced by handheld technology. Now more than ever, “there’s an app for just about anything.”
Furthermore, the want for convenience has morphed into reliance. A University of Missouri research study found that phone separation can affect “performance on mental tasks” while causing “a negative physiological state.” Another study revealed that 90% of 18–29 year olds sleep with their phones. And with approximately 77% of Americans owning smartphones these days, it should come as no surprise that phone addiction is a serious problem. Have you ever felt anxiety while forgetting your phone at home on a quick store run? There’s definitely a reason.
The Data Tug-of-War
With all the trust that we place into gigabytes, how are companies handling our public and private data dumps? In the recent past, two of the biggest tech companies, Apple and Google, have battled the FBI after receiving national security letters from the FBI requesting customer data. Apple’s case involved one of the gunmen responsible for the 2015 San Bernardino attack that left 14 people dead.
The FBI requested Apple to decrypt Syed Farook’s iPhone 5c, and though Apple refused, the FBI hired professional hackers to crack the phone. And while Apple took a stand in this extreme case, the tech giant quietly complied with 72% of device requests over a six-month span in 2016.
As the biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley monopolize small startups (and their technology), our data becomes more centralized, and the hub it creates provides a crucial asset for government agencies like the FBI and the National Security Agency. The exposure of the latter’s PRISM program in 2013 revealed the agency’s ability to directly access the servers of companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook.
But even if you’ve sworn off social media and have vowed to limit your digital footprint, your private phone property is still at risk, especially if you’re traveling internationally. U.S.-born scientist Sidd Bikkannavar learned this first-hand when returning home from a vacation in Chile.
Search, Seizure, and the Supreme Court
Amidst Donald Trump’s travel-ban launchpad into “presidentdom” in January 2017, Bikkannavar was “randomly selected” to turn over his NASA work phone and PIN. As a government employee he stated he was less concerned with his own privacy, but Bikkannavar was weary to unprotect the privacy of those he had contacted with the phone. After contemplation, he eventually complied while sitting in an interview room with other detainees.
U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have introduced a bill to cull border phone searches, but if the Trump administration’s aggressive border-vetting vow is any indication, the measure is unlikely to pass.
Domestically, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Riley v. California (2014) decided that cell phones could not be searched without probable cause which violates Americans’ Fourth Amendment right that prohibits search and seizure without issuance of a warrant. In response to the case, Chief Justice John Roberts’ court opinion is quite revealing:
Digital data stored on a cell phone cannot itself be used as a weapon to harm an arresting officer or to effectuate the arrestee’s escape. Law enforcement officers remain free to examine the physical aspects of a phone to ensure that it will not be used as a weapon — say, to determine whether there is a razor blade hidden between the phone and its case. Once an officer has secured a phone and eliminated any potential physical threats, however, data on the phone can endanger no one.
Summarily, a suspect’s phone (and accessories) as a piece of property is legally searchable only as to alleviate a potential physical threat to an officer.
But Roberts’ most telling statement is how the court chooses to legally regulate our phone data in a traffic stop:
Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans “the privacies of life”. The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.
The Supreme Court realized that searching a person’s phone contents legally equates to a house search without a court warrant.
But still, warrantless searches of cell phones in classrooms and on traffic stops across America continue to hamper the rights of those unaware of the law’s current stance on the issue.
As Chief Justice Robert’s opined, our phones have become “such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy.” And on that note, Three Square Market’s chip venture feels more epiphanic than episodic.
If conspiracy theories of a mass foreign-object implantation scheme still haunt your American dreams, rest easy. Our dependence on smart devices is both more a practical and efficient tool in information sharing, collection and tracking than any microchip program could ever aspire to be.
Update: With the help of the ACLU, 11 plaintiffs (including Sidd Bakkannavar) are suing Customs over illegal border searches of devices.
