Discovery Seminar 035158/UE 141 MMM

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Discovery Seminar 035158/UE 141 MMM
Spring 2008Solving Crimes using Referent
Tracking The implanted chip

• Werner CEUSTERS
• Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life
  Sciences
• Ontology Research Group
• University at Buffalo, NY, USA

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Assignment

• three reasons why it would be a good idea, and
  three reasons why it would be a bad idea to have
  each human at birth being implanted with a chip
  that would identify him/her uniquely and that is
  readable by sensors within a distance of 35 feet.

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RFID Identification Is Only Skin Deep

• It seems a week doesn't go by without a news
  story reporting on some aspect of RFID as if it
  was a newly-discovered technologywhen in fact
  its origins date back to the 1940s. What is
  getting everyone's attention these days is how
  this well-engineered technology is being paired
  with modern computing and communication
  technologies to create applications for RFID that
  wereuntil just recentlyunimagined. One such
  application is the use of an implantable RFID
  format for identification and medical information
  access in people.
• Scott Silverman, Chairman and CEO, Applied
  Digital Solutions

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Response overview

• Rar 1/29
• (Ar) 1/15
• Ew 1/15
• (ja) 1/14
• Bhy 1/11
• Lt 1/22

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The good reasons

• Finding/tracking individual persons
• Better access to data
• Crime prevention
• Direct identification

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?Finding/tracking individual persons

• everyone can always be traced even if they are
  lost, kidnapped etc. (rar)
• it could become a homing beacon for kids and
  adults who have been kidnapped or are lost for
  search teams (bhy)
• it would help in the arrest of criminals and
  terrorists (rar)
• find missing people (ra)
• government or law enforcement can ID suspects at
  a distance and without being spotted (ew)
• unlike security cameras that only show you a
  persons whereabouts, these chips can alert when a
  person leaves or approaches a certain area (ja)
• if they were to commit a crime it would be easy
  to find them (lt)
• they couldn't just change their appearance and
  hide from authorities, they would be found (lt)

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? Better access to data

• patient identification in hospitals to have more
  reliable access to critical data (ra)
• it would help in the arrest of criminals and
  terrorists (rar)
• In the case of a medical emergency where the
  patient would not be able to relay specific
  medical history information, this could come in
  handy (ja)

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? Crime prevention

• More difficult to commit crimes (ra) ?
• Sense of responsibility so that people do not
  harm or corrupt the community (rar)
• Being able to track criminals and other offenders
  will give people a sense of security in exchange
  for giving up their privacy (ja) ?
• It could provide security in banks, military
  bases, and nuclear plants by not allowing certain
  people into secure areas (bhy)
• Could aid in the capture and arrest of suspects,
  felons, and those running away from the law to
  better keep communities safe (bhy)
• if they were to commit a crime it would be easy
  to find them (lt)

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? Direct identification

• (No use of fungibility)
• Reduce the need for carrying passports, birth
  certificates, ID cards etc. (ew)
• Quicker and easier identification i.e. reduced
  lines for international flights, borders checks
  etc (ew)
• If they put sensors in airports and on country
  borders, international travel would be near
  impossible, or at the very least it would be
  found out. (lt) ?

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The bad reasons

• Too costly
• Privacy loss
• Health and well-being issues
• Potential for malfunctioning and abuse
• Legal issues

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?Too costly

• Economically expensive cause it would be a very
  tedious and costly job to set up sensors around
  the world for the system to be efficient (rar)
• As of now there is not even a nationwide
  fingerprint database, so for doctors to spend
  time to try to implant a human chip in every
  human born may be impossible and can become very
  costly. (ja)
• Probably expensive and question of whether or not
  insurance companies will help pay for the new
  technology (bhy)

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? Privacy loss

• It would invade an individuals privacy (rar)
• It would be a huge privacy issue. (lt)
• This would be an Invasion of Privacy by placing a
  chip in each human at birth without knowledge of
  consent. (ja)
• encroaches on personal freedoms (ra) ?
• Loss of privacy (ra)
• Government can monitor people without consent
  (ew)
• Anyone with the technology can read your personal
  info (ew)
• It takes away from the freedom that a person has
  to go and come as they please and do wherever
  they want without being tracked by a computer or
  a sensor (bhy)
• The people that don't do anything wrong but like
  to keep their lives private would have a very
  tough time since they could be detected from 35
  feet away, and if they are doing nothing wrong
  that doesn't seem fair. (lt)

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? Health and well-being issues

• The sensory waves and the chips could also have
  side effects on certain people (rar)
• It promotes more deeper distrust in individuals
  in the idea that they have to be electronically
  monitored (bhy)

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? Malfunctioning / abuse

• Abuse of or damage of the chip (ra)
• Technology can be invented to scramble the
  sensors and give false readings of information or
  ID theft (ew)
• Today many people know how to invade and hack
  into online databases. If a person was able to
  hack into this particular database they could
  retrieve ones credit card information, address,
  social security number and other personal
  information that could lead to many problems.
  (ja)

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? Legal issues

• They would need to pass a law to implement this,
  and that would be tough because many people would
  be against it. (lt)

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Oddities

• Three reasons why it would be a good idea for
  babies to be implanted with a chip are
• If they were to commit a crime it would be easy
  to find them.
• They couldn't just change their appearance and
  hide from authorities, they would be found.
• If they put sensors in airports and on country
  borders, international travel would be near
  impossible, or at the very least it would be
  found out.

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New assignment

• Propose an infrastructure for the implanted chip
  problem such that there is no privacy issue or
  loss of freedom without sacrificing any of the
  benefits stated under good reasons.
• Submit by email (ceusters_at_buffalo.edu) on
  February 11 at the latest