Uberveillance and the Rise of Last-Mile Implantables

5 Uberveillance and the Rise of Last-Mile Implantables: Past, Present and Future

Katina Michael, Arizona State University, M. G. Michael, University of Wollongong, Christine Perakslis, Johnson and Wales University, and Roba Abbas, University of Wollongong

Introduction

As the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) gathers momentum to become the Internet of Things and People, many innovators are looking into smart technologies that are not only carried or worn but implanted beneath the skin to form an integral part of end-to-end network architecture. In some ways, the end user is the new “last mile” in the global interconnected network topology, formed since the rise of the IP-based core. Embodied computing technologies, such as implantable technologies in living things, become the final security and privacy frontier in a context where every object and subject is identifiable with an IPv6 unique address. Members of the biohacking community demonstrate how proximity implantables can be used in an organizational context for physical access control, in-building location tracking, and convenience-oriented applications. This chapter provides an historical overview of nonmedical implants and the state of play today, and it ponders applications in the future, as well as the corresponding implications. The narrative provides strong evidence toward the use of such embodied computing technologies as implantables as a means to making end users key nodes in a network. We also examine the repercussions of such technological developments in view of the benefits and risks of uberveillance (embedded surveillance), together with the associated societal challenges.

From Luggables to Wearables and Implantables

Electronic-based physical access cards have been used to secure premises such as government buildings and large corporate offices since the inception of bar code and magnetic-stripe cards in the 1970s. Before they were clipped onto people in the form of physical badges, they were lugged around in pockets, purses, or wallets. Over time, for secure access control, these first-generation card technologies were replaced by more sophisticated system devices such as smart cards and biometrics, containing encrypted data and using techniques that were more difficult to dupe or to replicate (K. Michael 2003a).

An employee today wanting to gain access to their place of work typically carries a photo identity card in addition to a contactless smart card using radio-frequency technology, and may also use one of his/her unique physical characteristics (e.g., fingerprint, palmprint, iris, or face) for verification. Generally, the more information-sensitive the enterprise, the greater the security measures introduced to safeguard against fraudulent activities. Cards can nonetheless be lost or stolen, and photo identity badges can be counterfeited. This has led some innovators to consider the potential of radio-frequency identification (RFID) or implantable devices for employee identification, with the added possibility of using wireless networks to do location fixes on employees in large premises (e.g., manufacturing plants). Automatic identification devices can also provide access to militarized zones based on roles and privileges defined by administrator access control matrices.

RFID implantables are injected into the body and are theoretically not transferable, thus ensuring better security than traditional techniques. Microchip implants come in the form of tags or transponders that contain an integrated circuit. Animals have been implanted using the technology from the early 1990s to curb disease outbreaks and for total farm management (Trevarthen and Michael 2007).

Masters and Michael (2007) define three types of application areas for human-implantable microchips: (1) control (e.g., access control); (2) convenience (e.g., e-payment); and (3) care (e.g., accessing electronic health records remotely). A control-related human-centric application of RFID is any human use of an implanted RFID transponder that gives an implantee power over an aspect of their lives, or that gives a third party power over an implantee. A convenience-related one is any human use of an implanted RFID transponder that increases the ease with which tasks are performed. A care-related application is any use associated with medicine, health, or wellbeing (K. Michael and Masters 2004).

But how did implantables appear to suddenly enter the automatic identification landscape? The normalization of RFID bracelets began around the mid-1980s for home detention, extended supervision orders, and prison inmate tracking and monitoring. This is not atypical of emerging technologies, which are often tested on smaller minority groups. 3M championed the development of a “one piece” GPS monitoring system that integrates tracking, communication, and mapping technologies. The company noted that the system, attached to the leg, has the ability to define inclusion and exclusion zones and provide an animated birds-eye-view mapping functionality. Implantables have the added advantage of being discreet, in that they are not outwardly visible. For example, parolees on extended supervision orders who might be implanted would be given the opportunity to undergo rehabilitation without the added stigmatization from observers (K. Michael et al. 2009). Similarly, persons who have been charged with a crime but not yet tried or convicted could be granted bail and monitored electronically via implantables without the risk of observers presuming their guilt. However, there remain a great deal of ethical dilemmas around the question of trespassing the outer body and invading the inner person.

The notion of insertables (user removable embedded devices) has been introduced into the literature by Heffernan et al. (2017), at times to challenge the concept of an implantable (third-party removable embedded device) and elsewhere to signify a new breed of device that can be removed by a user. A number of examples come to mind, like Rich Lee’s (Arthur 2013) “implanted” ear buds that can send music directly to one’s ears and can easily be removed, or BrickHouseSecurity’s “Squelch” micro bluetooth spy earpiece that is fitted deep within the ear so it is invisible, and is removed with the aid of a super strong magnet (BrickHouseSecurity 2009; 2018). “Pure” insertables may be removable by the user, granting personal autonomy, but they still go deeper than a detachable wearable that can be stripped off the outer layer of the skin without the aid of a magnet. More often than not, an insertable requires some device to eject it from its in-body docking location (e.g., ear, mouth, nose, uterus).

Background: The Human Implant Controversy

RFID bracelets are in use in such closed campus facilities as Disney’s Magic Kingdom for access control and electronic payments. Some banks, like Barclays Bank, also piloted the use of a wristband for RF/NFC-enabled transactions. Bracelets and bands have also been used in prisons (to track inmates, security guards, and visitors, providing access to particular zones), and also for hospitals (to track medical staff and visitors through “contact and trace” programs, such as during the SARS epidemic) (K. Michael and Masters 2006). The technology can work to give access to specific rooms or inversely to keep people within certain perimeters (e.g., to keep newborn babies from being stolen from post-natal wards). The potential of RFID implantable devices for employee identification was demonstrated in a commercial context in two well-known cases: the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, Spain (2004–2009), and Citywatcher.com in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the United States (2006–2008).

In the case of the Baja Beach Club, both employees and club patrons were given the opportunity to receive implants. The employees used the implants to gain access to restricted areas in the Club (e.g., IT systems and administration records), and the club patrons used the implants for e-payment and to gain access to “very important patron” (VIP) lounge areas within the Club. In Citywatcher.com, all employees of the small business were given an opportunity to acquire an implant for access control, and a total of four employees were implanted. In both instances, implantation was not mandatory. The cases demonstrated that implantable devices can work just as well as contactless proximity cards for physical access control to premises (K. Michael and M. G. Michael 2010). Both programs have now been discontinued, but there has been a flurry of activity particularly in the USA, Australia, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands pursuing the potential for such embodied computing technologies involving connected humans.

Some of the issues that were prevalent in both organizational deployments had more to do with overcoming usability issues than with social, ethical, or legal concerns, since both commercial programs were on an opt-in basis (M. G. Michael and K. Michael 2007; Kumar 2007; Kargl et al. 2008; Wang and Loui 2009; Clarke 2010). The Citywatcher.com project preceded the State of Ohio’s legislation against the enforced chipping of employees but regardless was in accordance with it, given that it was entirely voluntary (Friggieri et al. 2009). The biggest hurdles had to do with (1) the actual location of the implantable device in the human body as designated by the vendor (at the back of the triceps in the upper right arm); (2) the location of the RFID readers (too high for some members of the population); and (3) the complexity of getting the implants embedded into willing participants, as it required a number of personnel to be engaged in the end-to-end procedure (IT manager, nurse or doctor, end-user, management for witnessing consent, etc.).

When interviewed and explicitly asked about social, ethical, or legal dilemmas and the risks related to the implantation of humans, representatives from both Baja Beach Club and Citywatcher.com stated that there were no risks or that risks were of a very limited nature (K. Michael 2009a; K. Michael 2009b). Representatives of both companies touted the benefits, convenience, rewards, and future prospects above and beyond any perceived risks. They were also passionate about the possibility that one day, all humans might never have to worry about carrying wallets, that credit card fraud would diminish, and that identity fraud would be eradicated. When asked about some of the major challenges such as the cloning of implants, electronic viruses on implants (Gasson 2010), the need for continual upgrades, dysfunctional implants, and members of the community who did not wish to opt in, both interviewees seemed untroubled by the problems this might pose. Dissent by members of the community over implantables for citizens or employee ID was seen as (1) generally limited to Christian fundamentalists who harbored concerns over the infamous “number of the beast”; (2) those who (genuinely) had “something to hide”; or (3) those that would raise complaints against just about anything. Indeed, according to the interviewees, all risks were simply considered to be teething problems of an emerging technology and would be overcome in the very short term, similarly to the security controls introduced since the inception of the internet. The risk versus reward question was not a point of contention—the rewards would outweigh any plausible risks, according to the key informant interviewees (K. Michael and M. G. Michael 2013).

The problem with implants, from the perspective of the individual body’s interaction with the technology, has for the most part to do with (1) permanency (depending on the site and length of implantation); (2) the requirement for a third party to enact removal upon request; (3) the bearer’s capacity to understand how the device may be interacting with the space around them with or without their consent; (4) the device’s insecurity; and (5) enforceability when considering the implantation of minors, persons suffering from cognitive disorders or dementia, and others in dependent relationships (K. Michael and M. G. Michael 2009). The human-centric implant controversy has to do with the potential for all human beings to be implanted with what seemingly looks like a liberating technology in embedded beneath-the-skin implants (i.e., you do not need to carry keys, wallets, cards, or proof of ID). But microchip implants are in reality a technology of controls, limits, and rights. The controversy will become especially rife if the majority of society enjoys the perceived benefits of using implants, with the minority deciding to live “off the grid.” There is a great deal of literature on the digital divide, but the divide that implants might cause is particularly radical and has not been commensurately addressed. The introduction of potentially culture-shifting techniques is invariably surrounded by clashes of policy, law, society, and philosophical and religious beliefs.

We have seen the enactment of anti-chipping laws in the United States (Friggieri et al. 2009) to guard against the possible abuse or misuse of embedded technologies within various relationship contexts—parent/child, employer/employee, doctor/patient, state/citizen, and so on. In fact, the State of Ohio outlawed enforced implantation of employees in SB 349, A Bill To Prohibit an Employer from Requiring an Employee of the Employer to Insert into the Employee’s Body a Radio Frequency Identification Tag. Legislation in this space has continued to be drafted over the last two decades, albeit with a focus on enforced “injection” rather than any other means of inward bodily identification. National-level governing bodies like the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) in the United States have had little to say regarding non-health-related implants. Their primary concern is likely to be around the best use of spectrum domestically and the prospective revision of regulation in the context of the new technology, rather than governance of the human body.

A significant spectre of embodied computing technologies, which is beyond the individual physical issues, is uberveillance (M. G. Michael and K. Michael 2007). Uberveillance is now commonly defined as “ubiquitous or pervasive electronic surveillance that is not only “always on” but “always with you,” ultimately in the form of bodily invasive surveillance” (Australian Law Dictionary 2010). The concept is linked to Friedrich Nietzsche’s vision of the Übermensch, who is a man with powers beyond those of an ordinary human being (M. G. Michael and K. Michael 2010). Uberveillance is analogous to Big Brother implanted in you, for example heart, pulse, and temperature sensor readings emanating from the body in binary data wirelessly, or even through amplified eyes, such as an inserted contact lens “glass” that might provide visual display and access to the internet or social networking applications (M. G. Michael and K. Michael 2013). Uberveillance brings together all forms of watching from above and below, from machines that move to those that stand still, from animals and from people, acquired involuntarily or voluntarily, using obtrusive or unobtrusive devices (K. Michael et al. 2010). The network infrastructure underlies the ability to collect data directly from the sensor devices worn by the individual, and big data analytics ensures an interpretation of the unique behavioral traits of the individual, implying not just predicted movement but intent and thought (K. Michael and Miller 2013).

It has been said that uberveillance is that part of the veillance puzzle that brings together the sur, data, and sous to an intersecting point (Stephan et al. 2012). In uberveillance, there is the “watching” from above component (sur), there is the “collecting” of personal data and public data for mining (data), and there is the watching from below (sous), which can draw together social networks and strangers, all coming together via wearable and implantable devices on/in the human body. Uberveillance can be used for good in the practice of health, for instance (Marilou et al. 2013), but we contend that independent of its application for nonmedical purposes, it will always have an underlying control factor (Masters and Michael 2005).

Implanting Humans for Nonmedical Applications (1997–2006)

The first known person to be implanted with a transponder for the purposes of demonstrating identification was Eduardo Kac in 1997 (K. Michael 2003a). Kac, a multimedia, communications, and biological artist produced a work entitled Time Capsule, which depicted him self-injecting an implant into his ankle, “web-scanning” the transponder, and then logging on to register himself on an animal database. In the following year, Kevin Warwick’s experiment Cyborg 1.0 had a profound impact on what could be achieved using implantable technologies (Warwick 2002a). Warwick was the first person to be implanted with a functional transponder for nonmedical research purposes (K. Michael 2003b). This experiment allowed a computer to monitor Warwick as he moved through halls and offices at his workplace using a unique identifying signal emitted by the implanted chip. He could operate doors, lights, heaters, and other computers without lifting a finger. Warwick’s experiments, including Cyborg 2.0 in 2002, demonstrated the potential for RFID implants to be used in convenience, care, and control-oriented applications. The experiments were sponsored by Nortel Networks, alongside Tumbleweed Communications, Computer Associates, and Fujitsu (Warwick et al. 2003). In Cyborg 2.0, Warwick had a one-hundred-electrode array surgically implanted into the median nerve fibres of his left arm (Warwick 2002b). Most notably, Warwick was able to control an electric wheelchair just by using a neural interface linked to his implant. Here, Warwick showed the potential of Brain-to-Computer Interfaces (BCI) but also of Brain-to-Brain Interfaces (BBI).

While Warwick was demonstrating the many use cases of implantables, Kac was pointing to the ethical dilemmas and what he called “trauma” in the creation of technology. According to Kac (1997), the “physical trauma . . . amplifies the psychological shock generated by ever-faster cycles of technological invention, development, and obsolescence.” Thus, Kac preempted philosophical debate on the question of implants with his Time Capsule work, and Warwick demonstrated the implant as an identity and location-finding capability, propelling further debate on the impending possibilities. Kac and Warwick saw years into the future.

In 1999, between Warwick’s Cyborg 1.0 and Cyborg 2.0 experiments, British Telecom’s Peter Cochrane wrote Tips for Time Travellers, in which he described a microchip implant as a “soul catcher chip” (Cochrane 1999). The year Cochrane’s monograph was published, the Auto-ID Centre consortium at MIT formally began researching the “Internet of Things,” a term coined by former Procter and Gamble assistant brand manager Kevin Ashton (Auto-ID Labs 1999).

At about the time of Warwick’s Cyborg 2.0 experiment in Britain in March 2002 came the unrelated establishment of the VeriChip Corporation in the United States, following the September 11, 2001, terrorist strike. Scott Silverman, the CEO of VeriChip, was often quoted describing the need for implants, especially for first responders. He noted the possibility of such a device tethered to an electronic bracelet being able to help first responders get out of hopeless situations, like a burning tower that was about to collapse (Applied Digital Solutions 2003). Executives at VeriChip were implanted in early 2002 before the VeriChip implantable RFID had received FDA approval (FDA 2004). Having observed widespread testing of RFID implants in animals for so many years with generally beneficial outcomes in farm operations, Applied Digital Solutions embarked on human implantables through their subsidiary VeriChip.

The VeriChip campaign to Get Chipped was launched in early 2003. There were a number of Veri centers where the procedure could take place in the United States. There was even a high-tech ChipMobile bus fully equipped to perform the implant procedure “on the road.” About the size of a grain of rice, the VeriChip was the world’s first subdermal commercial RFID microchip for use in humans. In theory, an implantee could be identified in a wi-fi network, such as in a workplace or on a university campus. Radio-frequency energy from the reader triggers the dormant VeriChip to send a signal containing the unique ID number. The exchange of data is transparent and seamless. Thus, for example, an individual could be identified by RFID, giving emergency services potentially life-saving access to the implantee’s medical data and history. It is estimated there were over 2,000 recipients of the VeriChip (Lewan 2007).

In April 2002, the Jacobs family volunteered to be the first consumers to receive a VeriChip. On May 11, 2002, the Jacobs chipping procedure was broadcast live on American television (BBC 2002). VeriChip then implanted some high-profile people, including Rafael Macedo de la Concha (Mexico’s Attorney General) and a number of his staff, citing security purposes (Gardner 2004). The company also drew political figures like Tommy Thompson, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (2001–2005) and candidate for the 2008 U.S. presidential election, who ultimately also served a two-year directorship on the board of VeriChip (Albrecht and McIntyre 2005). In 2004 and 2006, Baja Beach Club and Citywatcher.com engaged in VeriChip programs, and a host of private “Veri-chippings” were conducted with members of the public, included Alzheimer’s patients (ABC News 2007) and persons suffering from medical conditions and allergies.

Other new cyborg initiatives occurred independently of corporate interests, among them the case of Neil Harbisson in 2004, who was the first person to implant an antenna into his head. Harbisson’s device “sends audible vibrations in his skull to report information to him. This includes measurements of electromagnetic radiation, phone calls, music, as well as video or images which are translated into audible vibrations” (Harbisson 2010). He is also said to have the ability to receive signals and data from satellites.

As use cases of implantables in real-world contexts have increased, legislation has continued to lag behind. Yet there were early signs that some debate by government entities would be necessary over how these new forms of embodied computing technologies might enter the mainstream and what that might mean for society. The EU Opinion No. 20 on “Ethical Aspects of ICT Implants in the Human Body” was published, written by the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE), chaired by the Swedish philosopher Göran Hermerén, and adopted on March 16, 2005 (EGE 2005). Among the group were key members Professors Rafael Capurro and the late Stefano Rodotà.

Citizen scientists continued to self-experiment with RFID beneath the skin and share their learning with one another using the internet. On  March 22, 2005, Amal Graafstra of the USA was implanted with his first RFID tag. Graafstra (2007) and others like him (e.g., Mikey Sklar and Jonathan Oxer) pioneered noncommercial human implantables for custom-built home applications and were dubbed do-it-yourselfer RFID implantees (DIYers) by observers. Many of the early DIYers belonged to the Tagged Forum, which was set up to accommodate fellow tinkerers at the beginning of 2006. It became the “go-to” place for learning about how to tinker with RFID implants and what applications to build with them. The Forum soon attracted more attention than it wanted, targeted with posts proclaiming members were heralding in the “mark of the beast” (Rev. 13:16–18). As a result, the forum went underground and was left alone, away from public gaze.

For Graafstra, the VeriChip transponder sold to the public within a commercial setting represented completely different privacy challenges than the glass tags embedded in his own body (K. Michael and M. G. Michael 2009, 427–450). In fact, he was clearly not in favor of getting an implant that possessed antimigration coating, and that was under the control of a third party, injected so deep into the body (Graafstra et al. 2010). In 2006, Graafstra authored his own book, RFID Toys, written primarily for “tech-heads” who wanted to adapt their social living spaces for convenient interactivity (Graafstra 2006). Graafstra then branched out with several transaction-based start-ups that make use of a fully cryptographic piece of embeddable technology. His retail arm gathered momentum, supplying to resellers across the globe who specialise in personal chippings (K. Michael 2016). Graafstra claimed in 2016 that he had sold over 10,000 RFID injector kits for humans globally (Graafstra et al. 2016).

The period from 1997 to 2006 was a time of intense novelty, early hype, and proposing a future that very few genuinely wished to engage with (K. Michael 2015). A limited number of academics, some keen biohackers, and radical start-ups had taken seriously the idea of microchipping people. Things would begin to change drastically when some big brands began to openly engage with the broader concept of a paperless and cashless society.

Human-centric Implantable Use Cases (2007–2017)

Well known to most in the auto-ID industry were two IBM commercials produced in the mid-2000s, exhibiting RFID for “grab and go” shopping at a smart supermarket (IBM 2007a) and increased visibility in the supply chain (IBM 2007b). The “cutesy” nature of these commercials was a step away from the original “shock and awe” of the Applied Digital Solutions VeriChip “Get Chipped” campaigns, which were a response to national security (i.e., 9/11) and America’s healthcare crisis (Applied Digital Solutions 2006).

It was not just IBM and Andersen Consulting who had noted major change on the horizon through the embedding of RFID in humans and objects, but also Gartner, Microsoft Research, CISCO, Nokia, AutoDesk Research, Ericsson, MYOB, VISA, American Express, and InQTel (Wood 2004; Perusco et al. 2006; Storey 2014; Francis 2015; Chan 2016; IQT 2017) and smaller companies like Xega (Rosenberg 2008; Opam 2011). Executives of large multinationals were beginning to consider the possibility of an “on-off” RFID embedded tag that the user could control through an external I/O switch on the surface of their body (Perusco et al. 2006).

In a survey of 10,000 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) employees across major economies, 70 percent of PWC personnel said they would consider using “treatments to enhance their brain and body if this improved their employment prospects” (Hannan and Fox Koob 2017). Other studies include Michael, 2017a, like that conducted by Lloyd’s Bank, conclude that 7 percent of Britons would take up chip implants for banking (Boden 2015), and a survey by BITKOM of 1,000 respondents in Germany found that 23 percent would accept having a microchip implanted in their body if that would bring concrete benefits as a result (EDRI-gram 2010).

Much of the change in acceptance of such technologies has come from building up banking systems infrastructure for electronic transactions. Interoperability has been key in all of this, and historically just one example among many was the (EMV) Europay, MasterCard, and VISA alliance (K. Michael 2003a). Traditional banking was shaken beyond mere “standards” and “specifications”—a wave of full-blown deregulation of the telecommunications and banking sectors washed across the globe. It had become evident that traditional providers were being pressured by nontraditional players (Allen and Barr 1997). Credit card companies now had competitors who were ICT giants.

Penetrating the New Last Mile—The Human Body

Companies like Cochlear in 2017 have described the potential to fuse their hearing implantable device with a service that delivers entertainment-like music straight to the ear (Hinchliffe 2017). This is the blurring of the prosthetic with the amplified, the medical with the entertainment, as noted in a TEDxUWollongong scenario (K. Michael 2012).

End users have always been depicted in network diagrams as the last node—from the core to the edge to access nodes and finally to the end user’s home, workplace, or roaming location. Whereas desktop, laptop, tablet, and cellphone have been traditionally the devices depicted in these architectural diagrams, we now are witnessing the growth of embedded devices in things and people. These typically have been prosthetic devices like heart pacemakers, but since 2010 we are now seeing nonmedical devices come to the fore. On the human side, implantable devices like smart integrated circuits (IC), radio-frequency identification (RFID), near-field communications (NFC), light emitting diodes (LEDs), and magnets have broken through the final frontier: the body. No longer are we identifying just an individual, but we can decorporealize the person, to the implants in their heart, in their hip, hand, knee, and even the brain. Such transformations involve more than just sporting an implant, although the outward bodily transfigurations cannot help but have an inward-facing metaphysical and existential impact on the human person, as studies of tattooing have learned (Grognard 1994).

While the argument has been made by many that identity tokens do not have to be embedded to render the end user a “last mile” node, there is something starkly different about a device that one cannot remove on one’s own. And while theoretically “not transferable,” the RIFD tag or transponder can be cloned and can be “killed” using a number of different well-known security attacks (Sirotich 2007). The tag can also overtly or covertly be interrogated with or without your permission via inconspicuous readers installed in shopping malls or even lamp posts. Although an implantable cannot inform the individual of who has accessed its unique ID, the blockchain may well register all flows in a future based on smart city principles. The following are current use-cases of such embodied computing technologies as implantables that might point to mass market applications.

Ticketing

Andreas Sjöström of Sojeti boarded a Scandanavian Airlines flight from Stockholm Arlanda Airport to Paris using nothing but his NFC chip as a boarding pass (Sjöström 2016). Soon after, SJ Rail announced that its SJ Priority clients could have their ticket validated using their implantable (Weller 2017). Interestingly, since Sjöström’s experiment, he has written a blogpost on why “NFC chip implants are a bad idea,” citing such reasons as: it solves no real problem, doesn’t work well, takes more time, limited usage, and serious health issues (Sjöström 2017).

Security

Microchip implants for the purposes of personal security were utilized in Mexico by the Xega company as early as 2008 (New Scientist staff and Reuters 2008). As the rate of kidnappings has continued to rise, Mexicans have considered “identification chips” as one preventive measure. By 2008, Xega claimed to have 2,000 clients of the VeriChip implant in Mexico at a cost of an upfront fee of US $4,000 plus an annual fee of US $2,200. Of course, there is no “tracking” capability in this chip, and at best the implant would act as an identifier if a mutilated body were discovered post crime.

Ingestible chips have also been showcased at the D11 Conference (Kulaiay 2013) in 2013 by (then) Google’s Regina Dugan (formerly the nineteenth Director of DARPA and now at Facebook’s renowned lab called Building 8) for the purposes of ensuring that only verifiable users gain access to applications and computer devices. In essence, this is a daily “security” pill you could take. The same year chipmaker Freescale, who produces the chipset for the Fitbit, had created an Advanced RISC Machine (ARM)-powered functional, swallowable chip (Maly 2013). This is also a high-powered computer you can swallow.

Amal Graafstra of Dangerous Things, previously mentioned as a frontrunner during the first phase of nonmedical implantation, has been working on an implantable solution based on an NXP NFC chip (Dangerous Things 2015). The Vivokey is based on a NFC platform for identity, security, cryptography, and payment applications. In February 2019 he officially launched Vivokey’s Spark cryptobionic implant. Graafstra also implanted an Arduino device in his forearm in September 2016 for self-testing purposes, to be used for the storage of encrypted critical information.

Additionally, access control chips are used at the Epicenter building in Sweden for physical access control to the building, to photocopiers, and even to computers (Epicenter 2017). The Swedish company Biohax was responsible for conducting those chippings for security (Biohax International 2017). Of interest to those in the security community at large, is how two of the most insecure devices, RFID and NFC technology, are being touted for “security purposes” (Halamka et al. 2006).

Health and Monitoring

Proteus (BioHealth Innovation 2015) proposed that a tiny transmitter accompany all pharmaceuticals, to allow for remote monitoring of patients with adherence to prescribed medications. This would involve some form of behavioral tracking with markers denoting human activity graphs (WIRED UK 2014) showing when individuals stood, sat, slept, and engaged in exercise. As previously mentioned, the personal health record (PHR) implantable device patent filed by Digital Angel Corporation, known as the VeriChip, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States in 2004 (FDA 2004). Among people who were VeriChipped were those suffering from allergies and diabetes, and sufferers of Alzheimer’s in aged care facilities. Future work commences to make these biomedical developments increasingly important in terms of health outcomes with micrometer-scale, magnetic-resonance-coupled, RFID-carrying wireless sensors small enough to fit in cells (Hu et al. 2017).

E-payment

E-payment would in effect signify the end of “paper” cash and possibly be linked to bitcoin initiatives. Three Square Market (32M) has begun to use implantable devices as a cashless e-payment solution for its vending machines (Darrow 2017). They are purportedly working with American Express, who are handling the credit transactions. Some vending machines are now designed with no slots for coins, and analysts are now systematically studying specific vending machine transaction patterns linked to credit cards. With greater convenience to users, it would not be such a leap to get patrons to use a vending machine to purchase their favorite soft drink or packet of chips using implants. This highly convenient payment method could emerge as an example of addiction-by-design vending (Schüll 2012). Likewise, the introduction of paywave-based NFC “tap and go” Point of Sale (PoS) machines has meant that the number of user transactions with plastic cards has dramatically increased in frequency (Elsworth 2014), with some in severe credit debt claiming that the “value” of real money is being lost psychologically, and their ability to control their spending is diminishing. Facebook’s cryptocurrency campaign to support a cashless society through the Libra Association, may further exacerbate the potential reach of implantables in a cashless society, to escape the problems that existed with Card Not Present fraud.

As investigated by researchers (K. Michael 2009a; K. Michael and M. G. Michael 2010), the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, Spain, accepted payments for goods in their club using a VeriChip implantable. VISA was also working with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) on future e-payment scenarios (Francis 2015). Biohackers are talking up the potential to use implantables for bitcoin transactions and to aid in blockchain registers. In fact, implants are the ultimate blockchain facilitator, as they are “easy” and always available at the point of transaction, even if it is a remote transaction via a computer console or smartphone.

Criminals and VIPs

There have been a number of high-profile law enforcement and government officials who have called for individuals to be chipped if they are sex offenders (Berry 2011), high-risk persons to society (ABC News 2011), illegal immigrants, and suspected terrorists (The Express Tribune Correspondent 2015). In 2016, the president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, passed the directive known as perppu, where judges of paedophile and rape cases are able to enforce the chipping of an offender for all their lives, providing trackability by police (Martel 2016). This follows a bill that was presented in 2008 in the Indonesian province of Papua for some carriers of HIV to be implanted (Associated Press 2008). On the other side of the spectrum are high-profile officials, considered very important persons, who have adopted microchip implants. Among these, as already noted was the Mexican Attorney General (WIRED 2004) and some of his staff.

Multifunctional Input/Output Device

Several biohackers and companies are experimenting with embedded computer devices with a multiplicity of sensors, on-board cryptographics, more memory, and faster processing speeds. Grindhouse Wetware’s Tim Cannon has a Circadia in his left forearm that reads physiological characteristics such as temperature and sends the information remotely to a tablet (Motherboard 2013). Autodesk Research (Holz et al. 2012) also in 2012 experimented with an implantable user interface that had a number of on-board sensors (Holz 2017) including tap sensor, tactile button, pressure sensor, LED, speaker, and vibration motor. The Autodesk Research presented at a CHI conference was significant for its multifunctionality and outside-the-box thinking for computer inputs, though it raised some particularly grave issues for self-experimentation for a participant-observer view. Photography published with the paper shows some radical aesthetic intrusion into the forearm of the experimenter, with a note indicating that people should not try this at home: “Throughout this paper, illustrations have been used in place of actual photographs of the specimen, to ensure ethical and professional standards are maintained” (Holz et al. 2012).

The use-cases of implantable devices have continued to expand from their original demonstrations of Projects Cyborg 1.0 (Warwick 1998) and Cyborg 2.0 (Warwick 2002b), conducted by Kevin Warwick and Mark Gasson. Initially these chips were for identity, location, and interactivity, but they have grown to be so much more. The question remains whether we want to buy in to a future of locked-in principles. While the cool, convenience, and care factors are significant, the control dimension is everpresent (Masters and Michael 2005). Who would really want a device that is embedded and cannot easily be removed, registering their every move back to base overtly, or even covertly? For now, the chips most implantees carry are passive devices, but it will not be long before we want more interactivity and turn to semiactive or fully active devices that can do precision location using Ultra-Wide Band (UWB), Bluetooth (BLE), or even NFC technology tethered to smartphones, depending on the context.

Certainly, we have had prosthetic devices that are, for the greater part, life sustaining (e.g., heart pacemakers) or preventative devices (e.g., birth control implantables), such as the Implanon (Implanon USA 2016). However, individuals who are required to anchor down to a brand, or multiple brands, a bank, a telecoms provider, or even a government ID, are likely to disfavor implants.

Some members of the biohacking movement are experimenting with microchipping themselves and others to figure out what else they might do when government ID is heralded in. What might such experimentation achieve if not ultimately propelling us toward a government ID based on implantables? We have seen the biohackers give in to the glitz of big ICT, credit card giants, telecoms vendors, and even DARPA (K. Michael et al. 2017b). This seems to override the biohacker ethic steeped in citizen science, and we already see the complexities take place before us; that is, biohackers now talking to business and trailblazing big ideas. Wetware Grindhouse is talking about hacking the brain next (Mallonnee 2012).

The Implications of Humancentric Implants

Following are some of the major repercussions of implanting the body using miniaturized computer hardware. These concerns apply not just to such embodied computing technologies as injectables but also to swallowable devices and other such technologies that may sit under the skin. There are other relevant issues that space will not allow us to cover in this chapter, including that implants do not always work well (despite what proponents claim), the growing concerns over health issues and spectrum issues, the potential for electromagnetic interference, and multibrand ownership problems.

Security

When using extremely insecure technologies (Reynolds 2004), such as RFID and NFC, for the purposes of physical access control, security issues inevitably arise. No doubt, as these technologies proliferate, people could be drawn against their will to unlock front doors, computer desktops, tablet devices, smartphones, and more, even while asleep. Additionally, there has been no way of tracking unique ID numbers outside a closed campus environment unless a global register is enacted independent of manufacturer. This could lead to a form of unique lifetime identifier for each person, and the things they possess or interact with, and their corresponding social networks. In 2004, Gartner (Reynolds 2004) published several reports indicating that RFID was very insecure. Some people have got around this by claiming that we will still require two-factor authentication with implantables—the embedded ID token, and a biometric or even a password—but this defeats the purpose. RFID and NFC tags can be read and even written to by just about any reader device or smartphone. As previously mentioned, RFID tags can be cloned (Halamka et al. 2006) and hacked (MKme Lab 2014) and also “killed” (RFID Journal 2014). Biohackers defend the insecurity of the RFID tag by stating that most implants are passive and can be triggered not further than 10 cm away, but this ignores that some RFID passive tags have a read range of 10 m away (BlueBite 2019). Civil libertarians and privacy experts point to this as offering even greater precision to identify or locate individuals at the point of the transaction. Moreover, there are NFC readers in smartphones; and we are continuously interacting with our phones. It would not be difficult to precisely identify and locate an implantee with fixed or mobile readers.

Privacy

There are various rights connected to privacy, including location privacy, bodily privacy, and information privacy (Clarke, 1988). No doubt the greatest privacy invasions will come when sensors we bear pick up everything we say, see, and think, and send this data back to hive minds for processing (Ward 2019). High tech beneath the skin is highly intrusive to our overall physical and mental privacy. Individuals who bear implantables have a very limited personal capacity to remove these devices. Removal could mean, at least over time, that we are persona non grata or even a “nonperson.”

The more data that will be amassed on the databases linked to the implants, the greater the willingness for identity theft and stored personal details. Risks to privacy include surveillance by family members, employers, insurers, stalkers, and governmental agencies. Premises could be rigged up with readers in restrooms, walkways, and flooring to track human movement and the tracking would be continuous via multiple stakeholder vectors and not discrete as is presently defended.

Enslavement

There is an effectively limitless amount of control that comes with 24 × 7 monitoring of what may become akin to black box recorders in the body. For now, we have GPS tags that can be worn by recipients, such as the “fight recorder” (Defence Science and Technology Group 2017), and devices such as those made by Myriota, enabling machine-to-machine connectivity in the Internet of Things (Myriota 2018). Although embodied computing technologies such as implantables may seem to introduce greater convenience and care, the dimension of control will be prevalent. The enslavement will also come from those who have access, and for this purpose a given axis of access, into the surveillance that could be established by the techno-elite who will be the primary drivers behind the push for singularitarianism. An electronic apartheid could ensue; the technological chasm between the haves and have-nots could be irreconcilable. For the majority of the populace, there could be no “taking a break” from the onslaught of surveillance. The ontological implications, that is, questions directly dealing with the nature of being, are likely to be enormous.

Social e-Inclusion

If we enslave ourselves to a series of future upgrades, as we have seen with smartphones, new and graded societies of people will emerge who can afford varying levels of embodied computing technologies and entry into the higher axis points of new technologies. They will have memory chips to make them smarter and more employable, drug delivery chips to help them live longer, and chips that link them up to neural interfaces and digital speeds for maximum throughput. Those who cannot afford a life of continual upgrades will have access to multifunctional/multi-application chips that ration and control their e-payments, and everyday applications like ticketing. Others still, depending on economic system and government, will simply walk around with a unique lifetime identifier, likely DNA codes, used to identify them as “living,” perhaps fundamentally robbed of autonomy. Brand ownership will also dictate who can do what with the device(s), and who has read or write access. Perhaps those who can afford it will get more than one chip to serve specific functions; perhaps others who are uninsurable, due to health status or crimes, will have one chip that governs their holistic actions. Already some biohackers have noted the limited space in their hands as they continue to upgrade and hybridize.

Human Rights

Humans could also be reduced to “things” in an “Internet of Things,” where people will be tagged (2017), tracked, and traced like objects. Implants could curb freedom and perhaps even aspects of free will. We have seen what numbered “brands” did to humans who were minorities in that state-sponsored Holocaust; unleashing something even more sophisticated nowadays, using electronic identification implantables, would magnify social sorting on a scale never before seen or imagined. Every piece of data gathered, as we develop and grow, and every related piece of data to family or friends, could be analyzed. These are the fundamental building blocks of the dystopia often written about and discussed in recent decades.

Two important pieces of international law are the Universal Declaration of Human rights (especially article 3), and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (especially articles 7–9). In 2007 researchers (Albrecht 2007) attempted to introduce a Bodily Integrity Act, but it did not come to pass. In the field of human rights, violation of the bodily integrity of another is regarded as unethical, intrusive, and even criminal. This is why law enforcement cannot take an individual’s DNA sample without their consent for less-serious offences, otherwise seeking a compulsion order from a judge for more-serious crimes (K. Michael 2009c).

In terms of risks to one’s health, nonmedical devices are a personal liability, given the unknown consequences over long-term use. The VivoKey’s warning to buyers and recipients reads: “While the VivoKey Spark transponder has undergone several quality checks during manufacture and has been put through a battery of tests with various private labs, it has not been tested or certified by any government regulatory agency for implantation or use inside the human body. Use of this device is strictly at your own risk” (VivoKey 2019).

Discussion: When Medical and Nonmedical Implants Converge

Evaluating Border Crossings in an Interconnected World

We are rapidly moving into the uncharted territory of pervasive technology with an interconnected world of thinking machines. As a vast array of embedded smart devices will be connected to the IoTaP (Internet of Things and People), technology will be far more intelligent and ubiquitous. Fuelled by calm technology, devices will free humans from the effort of human-to-machine (H2M) interactions, as well as elements of everyday decision making. Technology will think and act for us behind the lines of visibility. The reach of technology now can extend from the sky (surveillance) to the street (dataveillance, as described by Clarke [1988[) to the person around you (sousveillance, as noted by Mann and colleagues [2003]) to within you (uberveillance, as noted by M. G. Michael [2006]), and back to the sky (Figure 5.1). Information exchanges can now move seamlessly and automatically in and through us, and across multiple platforms in each of the converging veillances.

Figure 5.1 The Veillances: Watching or Being Watched.

To determine privacy violations in the context of the veillances, researchers (Perakslis et al. 2014) examined “borders of privacy” as defined by Gary T. Marx in 2001. Marx proposed four borders. Natural Borders relate to materially observable elements such as walls, doors, clothing, facial expressions, and oral conversations. Social Borders relate to expectations such as confidentiality with professionals or family and friends, and freedom from invasion of privacy by others in the social system. Spatial or Temporal Borders relate to expectations such as the right to delineate between various areas of an individual’s life (work, personal, religious spheres) or at various points in time, and rights to maintain decoupled spheres. Borders Due to Ephemeral or Transitory Effects relate to expectations such as the right to have information forgotten, or to delete permanently a past extemporaneous or regrettable action.

The four privacy borders were set against the backdrop of the four veillances and contemplated Marx’s concentric circles of information about a human (i.e., individual, private, intimate, and sensitive information). The convergence of the veillances creates an urgent need to address embodied computing technologies that can listen to the inside of humans (e.g., body and thought), quantify our behavior through algorithms, or modify our biochemistry. Thus, researchers (Perakslis et al. 2016) proposed a fifth border, the physio-psychological border, defined as “the boundaries of the internal realm of the individual’s human system such as physiological and psychological; the expectations of personal autonomy and self-determination of his or her human system, including ownership of the information.”

Six Principle Risks of Pervasive Implantable Technologies

Perakslis et al. (2014) have explored these emerging pervasive systems relative to embodied computing technologies and have proposed risks, as well as three overarching attributes to consider: intelligent, unobtrusive, and ubiquitous. Juxtaposing these with the four veillances in order to harvest risks, the authors had proposed six principal risks:

1.   Insightfulness: With data gleaned across all veillances, devices will assess humans in multiple contexts, capacities, and times, allowing the system to have a precise and profound understanding of a human in their past, present, and future states.

2.   Imperceptibility: Users will be mostly unaware of what is collected, by whom, for how long, how it is synthesized with other data, and who owns the data.

3.   Incomprehensibility: Terms and conditions are often murky and/or mutable, and the everyday consumer is not likely to comprehend the wide-ranging system, nor the associated risks across multiple organizations sharing data.

4.   Indelibility: Our digital footprints are likely to leave an indelible history of analyzable behaviors, especially if we do not own our data, or if it is shared and stored elsewhere in the veillances.

5.   Invasiveness: As we allow devices to listen inside of us and communicate back and forth between the veillances, we are likely to create systems in which not only are our behaviors predicted but even our intent. Dignity is likely to be at risk, even if unintentionally.

6.   Involuntariness: Opting in to technology is becoming a requirement to participate in society, to belong and benefit socially or financially.

Pervasive technologies violate all of the aforementioned borders of privacy and so society must enter into the debate to address these issues. History has shown that commonly, consequences are delayed; false senses of security often exist in early stages.

When Metadata is “All” of You: Analogue to Digital

Uberveillance (M. G. Michael and K. Michael 2010) can undeniably lead to misinformation, misinterpretation of data, and the manipulation of information. Data gathered for one purpose, no doubt could be retrospectively used, for unrelated functions. Of course, such embodied computing technologies as implantables are just one view of the world (Smith 2017); the other is what we are doing to our surroundings and the sensors we are embedding wall-to-floor in buildings, in clothing and textiles, in cars and trucks, in private toilets and public lamp-posts. Smart they may well be, but this data will send endless streams back to base for law enforcement big data software to trawl and record and act upon (Merrill 2015).

Perhaps there could be nowhere to hide as smart materials in infrastructure interact with smart sensors in people. Would this be all in the name of smart cities and sustainable living paradigms? Perhaps there would be proactive profiling of the masses or targeted populations, like never before envisioned. The coalescence of sensors meeting network infrastructure will mean a world that is more secure in some respects, but also far more less secure if humans have no anonymity, or where creativity and diverse thinking will be curbed for utilitarian dreams, or where ever greater corruption could take place using digital audits that no one can conclusively prove fake. This is possibly the greatest paradox of uberveillance: at the very point we have the greatest visibility of individual day-to-day proceedings, we will also experience the greatest risk. Although benefits of such technologies have been enjoyed at some levels (e.g., medical implants), they have not eliminated or reduced wars, terrorism, famine, or poverty. However, especially in health care, these incredible strides forward are surely welcome and encouraged. Therefore, we are arguing for responsible and discerning engineering where its applications and consequences are well thought out and broadly scrutinized.

If we continue down this technological path unchecked and without rigorous ethical considerations, the result will be severe disruption, with society enabled by technology embedded subcutaneously. There is so much we do not know yet that will take decades to discover—are these devices really safe for the integrity of the body and the soundness of the mind? Particularly if we understand these components of our life to be highly networked and integrated.

Conclusion

The universal application of such embodied computing technologies as implantables with uberveillant consequences can no longer be dismissed as “conspiracy theory,” especially as we inch toward a society whereby end users or individuals are becoming the final security and privacy frontier, or the “last mile” in the Internet of Things and People (IoTaP). The repercussions of these technological developments, such as security, privacy, and human rights challenges, have yet to be fully appreciated. This chapter provides historical context illustrating the advent and rise of salient embodied computing technologies and urges individuals to question and challenge existing assertions regarding the wider benefits of such converging technologies, especially as humans become key nodes in a global network. While the researchers agree that there are many potential health, entrepreneurial, security, and other gains to be had, caution should be exercised. Additionally, responsible and discerning engineering is encouraged. Failure to address such issues is likely to result in the realization of an uberveillance society that will be plagued with misinformation, misinterpretation of data, and the manipulation of information. This could prove to be one of the greatest ironies of our information age.

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Citation: Katina Michael, M.G. Michael, Christine Perakslis, Roba Abbas. 2020. Uberveillance and the Rise of Last-Mile Implantables: Past, Present and Future. In Isabel Pedersen and Andrew Illiadis, Embodied Computing: Wearables, Implantables, Embeddables, Ingestibles. MIT Press, pp. 97-130. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11564.003.0007

• The paper above contains some errors as it is not the final accepted version to MIT Press. Importantly the originally submission was 50pp; and this is the semi-abridged 30+ pp version.