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In electronic ID tag game, when will you be it? AMY BALDWIN / Charlotte Observer | February 19 2006 An Ohio firm has implanted silicon chips in two of its workers in what is believed to be the first known case in the United States of electronic tagging of employees for security purposes. The employees volunteered, but the move by CityWatcher.com, a private video surveillance company in Cincinnati, raises a question: When will you be tagged? Probably not ever, say workplace experts. But it could become increasingly common for employees to be required to carry electronic chips on their person, with keys or around their necks, said Kenny Colbert, president of The Employers Association, a Charlotte firm that advises 700 companies on human resource issues. "But that is a radical thought -- to have the chip implanted," Colbert said. "I just don't see this being a wave of the future by any stretch of the imagination." CityWatcher said it was testing radio frequency identification technology -- RFID -- as a way to control access to a room that holds clients' security footage. Two employees, along with CEO Sean Darks, volunteered to have the chips implanted in their arms. These chips are read by electronic readers -- like card readers -- that allow them access to that secured room. The chips do not emit signals, so the worker's movements can't be tracked. Radio frequency technology predates World War II but has appeared in numerous modern adaptations, such as identifying pets and vehicles. Businesses use it to keep track of inventory in transit. After Hurricane Katrina, as body counts mounted and missing-person reports multiplied, some morgue workers in Mississippi used the tiny chips to keep track of unidentified remains. The Mexico attorney general's office implanted RFIDs in some employees in 2004 to restrict access to secure areas. CityWatcher CEO Darks said neither he nor his two employees have suffered any ill effects from the chips in their arms. "I play basketball. I get hit and pushed," he said. Still, most employees would likely resist anything invasive, said Roger Herman, head of The Herman Group, a Greensboro-based consulting firm that specializes in workplace issues. Factoring in costs and other security issues as well, Herman is skeptical that RFIDs will be the wave of the workplace future. "I don't know if companies are going to want to go to the expense and risk the security issues. If you terminate an employee, now what? You have someone walking around with a chip to get into all your stuff," Herman said. Privacy advocates are still concerned. Katherine Albrecht, co-author of "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID," said she's unnerved because the company that supplied CityWatcher with its chips, Delray Beach, Fla.-based VeriChip Corp., touts the chips as means of keeping tabs on employees. "It might be true that CityWatcher is not using it that way at this time but it is certainly how the product is being billed," Albrecht said. Not true, said John Procter, spokesman for VeriChip. VeriChip will not sell chips to any company that mandates employs have them embedded under their skin, he said. "She is misrepresenting the technology. You can't track anyone with VeriChip," Procter said. "It is a passive RFID chip, which means it does not transmit any signal unless prompted by a VeriChip scanner. It is not GPS capable. You can't track it with a satellite." ---------------------------------------------------
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