Debate Stirs Over Employee ID Implants

UPI | February 14 2006

Liz McIntyre, who campaigns against the use of identification technology, said it was dangerous new ground for the company. "There are very serious privacy and civil liberty issues of having people permanently numbered," she noted.

An Ohio security company has become the first known U.S. employer to implant electronic ID tags in employees, the Financial Times reported Monday.

Officials with CityWatcher.com in Cincinnati said two people agreed to the experiment for protecting the security of a room used to store security video footage.

High Security
The company provides security cameras and storage for digital videos that are recorded over the Internet .

Sean Darks, chief executive of CityWatcher, said the glass-encased chips were like identity cards that are planted in the upper right arm of the recipient and read by a device similar to a card-reader, but unlike a Global Positioning System.

"There's nothing pulsing or sending out a signal," Darks told the newspaper. "It's not a GPS chip -- my wife can't tell where I am."

Dangerous Territory
VeriChip, the U.S. company that made the devices, said the implants were designed primarily for medical purposes.

Liz McIntyre, who campaigns against the use of identification technology, told the newspaper it was dangerous new ground for the company.

"There are very serious privacy and civil liberty issues of having people permanently numbered," she said.

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