An ATM card under your skin: company pushes chip implants
Applied Digital Solutions is hoping their 12-by-2.1mm radio frequency identification tag catches on as an under-the-skin alternative to an ATM or credit card.
Nov. 25 — Radio frequency identification tags aren’t just for pallets of goods in supermarkets anymore. Applied Digital Solutions (ADS) of Palm Beach, Fla., is hoping that Americans can be persuaded to implant RFID chips under their skin to identify themselves when going to a cash machine or in place of using a credit card.
THE SURGICAL PROCEDURE, which is performed with local anesthetic, embeds a 12-by-2.1mm RFID tag in the flesh of a human arm. ADS Chief Executive Scott Silverman, in a speech at the ID World 2003 conference in Paris last Friday, said his company had developed a “VeriPay” RFID technology and was hoping to find partners in financial services firms.
Matthew Cossolotto, a spokesman for ADS who says he’s been “chipped,” argues that competing proposals to embed RFID tags in key fobs or cards were flawed. “If you lose the RFID key fob or if it’s stolen, someone else could use it...
