Tom Scott (youtuber) is looking for help.
For posterity, and so I donāt have to type this all up again in the future, I submitted the following to him for a video idea;
My name is Amal Graafstra, and Iāve been using chip implant technology under my skin since 2005. Iāve written a book called RFID Toys (2007 Wiley Publishing) and started companies that design, manufacture, and retail human chip implants. The current feeling from the general public is that chip implants for humans is a bad idea, that somehow they compromise personal security and privacy, and that ultimately implants will result in some form of oppression. This is the idea that movies and TV shows promote endlessly - having a chip implant is a liability and never a good thing. Meanwhile, biometric systems are being deployed in everyday technologies used everywhere, but also totalitarian regimes like China, all without a second thought.
Biometrics pose the real danger to personal security and privacy, because the target can both be enrolled into and identified by the system, all without their knowledge or consent. In reality, biometrics are not secure enough to benefit you, but good enough at identifying people to be used by 3rd parties to identify you. Identification is not the same as authentication, and it has serious consequences for personal privacy and security.
On the other hand, a chip implant has the ability to, in essence, upgrade you as a human being, with powerful cryptographic capabilities. A passive transponder (NFC) device placed subdermally that can never be forgotten or lost, is upgradable with applications over the air via NFC from your smartphone, and provides standards based encryption capabilities like PGP, FIDO2 / Webauthn, OTP, HMAC, etc. all in a token that is frictionless to use and canāt be stolen because it was plugged into your laptop when your bag was taken by thievesā¦ there is power in merging a strong digital security token, and in essence, your digital identity itself, with your own biological identity. Devices like computers and phones cede their authority over your identity back to you, and become simple interfaces. Your critical identity credentials are now a part of you, and go where you go, not where your phone or computer goes.
Cryptography has been around a long time, but there is one reason itās not widely used. Generally speaking, security and convenience are at odds with each other. Something that is secure is not typically convenient, and things which are convenient are not typically all that secure. Cryptography works, but itās not terribly convenient to use. In particular, managing cryptographic keys and tokens is the crux of the problem. Not only is it a pain to haul around a token or carefully protect a key, which is essentially a long password you couldnāt possibly remember yourselfā¦ but because cryptography works so well, if you lose your key or token, you lose access. This has become painfully apparent to many bitcoin wallet holders over the years.
A chip implant has the ability to break that paradigm because of itās ability to perform strong cryptographic functions, including bitcoin and blockchain functions, all in a device that you can never lose and is always ready to go to work for you. In fact, some applications are only practical or possible if implemented with a chip implant. For example, I built a smartgun application, not because I love guns, but because I wanted to showcase how a smartgun could be made practical through the use of a chip implant. Smartguns have existed in the past, but itās always been implemented with a wearable ring or bracelet of some kind, or biometrics which are terrible in this application for many reasons I wonāt bother going into here. In essence, smartgun owners would have to wear on their body, 24/7, a fashion item designed by a gun company that also advertises the fact the person has a smartgun, all the time. Day and night. Many times, these rare smartgun owners would end up putting the authentication device into the gun safe with the smartgun because it was impractical to wear all the time. A chip implant is covert, nobody know you have one. It also requires not maintenance, no charging, no management. Itās always there and ready to authenticate you. In reality, with biometric technology at its current state, a chip implant is the only practical option for smartgun owners.
The personal health risks of having a chip implant are so benign I almost forgot to mention them. Getting a chip implant is less risky to your health than getting an ear piercing. A typical piercing requires two holes through tissue, hanging a piece of metal through the wound, waiting days for it to heal up around that metal, during which the risk of infection is quite high. A chip implant gets inserted through a needle procedure, with only a single incision made in the dermis. The incision itself is closed in a matter of hours, healed in days, and once closed the risk of infection drops to nominal.
Overall, my point here is that contemporary wisdom regarding chip implants vs biometrics is practically 180 from the reality. Biometrics are a horrible invasion of privacy with no security benefits for you, while chip implants have the power to improve your personal security and privacy through data encryption and strong authentication technologies that are always at the ready. Perhaps itās time to take a clear look at this kind of subdermal technology and truly evaluate the risks and potential rewards of human chip implant technology.