Roboworkers - why some people are getting bodychips implanted in their hands

How would you feel about having a microchip implanted in your hand to make things more convenient at work?
In Sweden, some workers are actually volunteering to do just that, electing to have a chip the size of a grain of rice implanted in their bodies to help them unlock doors, operate printers, open storage lockers and even buy smoothies with the wave of their hand, according to an Associated Press report. Epicentre, a digital hub in Stockholm that houses more than 300 startups and innovation labs for larger companies, has made the implanted chip available to its own workers and to member organisations in recent years.
It is a biohacking experiment in simplicity that's been embraced by some early adopters associated with the centre but represents a technological frontier sure to make other people shudder.
But while it may sound like the dawning of an era of a cyborg workforce, management consultants say they're hearing little interest in the concept so far, and those leading the experiment in Sweden say it's an entirely voluntary exercise intended simply as a technological test for convenience.
"It's very early to try to depict where this is going," said Patrick Mesterton, co-founder and CEO of Epicentre, in an interview with the Washington Post. "We're just doing this because it's interesting. We want to play around with technology."
The promise behind the implant being offered at Epicentre is efficiency. People who get "chipped" - the same technology used to track pets or deliveries - can replace things like key cards, employee badges and credit cards for certain functions at the facility with technology that can't be lost or left behind.
Mesterton said about 75 of the 2,000 people who work for the organisations housed at Epicentre had elected to have the chip implanted, including six of his 12 employees. Another 75 people who have no direct affiliation with Epicentre, but have attended open events at the facility, have chosen to be chipped out of their own interest. (A chain of gyms in Sweden, Mesterton said, offers access through embedded chips.)
The technology also does not allow for any kind of monitoring, he said.
It "doesn't even carry that ability. It's exactly the same as if you would use a single key card," he said.
Known as a "passive chip," it has no built-in power supply and can't send signals about its position. "If a person is worried about being traced, your mobile phone or Internet search history poses a bigger threat than the RFID chip we use ever would do," Mesterton said in an email.
Ethical or privacy issues, however, could become a concern if the chips do more in the future and organisations embrace that technology. As Ben Libberton, a microbiologist at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, told AP, "conceptually you could get data about your health, you could get data about your whereabouts, how often you're working, how long you're working, if you're taking toilet breaks and things like that".

Source: Washington Post