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KEEPING TRACK

Should YOU microchip your child? Tech expert explains whether the device would keep your kid safe

Dino Burbidge, director of Technology and Innovation at advertising agency WCRS, warns there are a variety of practical and ethical implications to using microchips on children

WOULD you implant a chip under your child’s skin in a bid to monitor their whereabouts?

Microchipping hit the headlines after Three Square Market, a US computer software company, unveiled plans to offer hi-tech devices to its employees.

 Three Square Market is about to become the first in the US to offer the hi-tech implants to its employees
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Three Square Market is about to become the first in the US to offer the hi-tech implants to its employeesCredit: Three Square Market

The chips will allow those who have them to pay for food and drink in the company’s break room, open doors, login to computers and use the copy machine. Three Square Market insist they will not have GPS capabilities.

Meanwhile, Steven Northam, 33, had a chip, which is about the size of a grain of rice, implanted between his thumb and finger that lets him open his front door and even start his car.

While advances in this field are clearly being made, Dino Burbidge, director of Technology and Innovation at advertising agency WCRS, warns there are a variety of practical and ethical implications to using them on children.

“First off, let’s be very clear here, there’s a big difference between the companies that supply the chips and the companies that ask their staff to have them implanted,” Dino told The Sun Online.

“The chips are almost identical to the ones used to identify pets. The kits exist to inject them, so yes, in terms of ‘do we have the capability’, we absolutely do.”

He added: “However, do we have the need or the moral rights to implant chips into children, that’s completely different. And I’d suggest the answer is a big, fat, solid no.”

 Dino Burbidge, director of Technology and Innovation at advertising agency WCRS, warns there are a variety of practical and ethical implications to using them on children
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Dino Burbidge, director of Technology and Innovation at advertising agency WCRS, warns there are a variety of practical and ethical implications to using them on childrenCredit: Supplied

There are two types of microchip available for sale online; one is slightly longer than a grain of rice and the other is flatter, more flexible and is about the size of a fingernail.

Dino said: “They have to be implanted quite close to the skin as they can only be scanned at a distance up to about 2mm. Anything deeper and they are hard to read.”

The best place to insert them is the “squishy muscle between the thumb and first finger” – but the procedure would be unpleasant.

“Assuming society suddenly decided it was acceptable to chip a child (or adults for that matter), you’d pretty much have to do it yourself,” he said.

 Steven Northam, 33, has had a chip which is about the size of a grain of rice implanted between his thumb and finger
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Steven Northam, 33, has had a chip which is about the size of a grain of rice implanted between his thumb and fingerCredit: Solent News

“It would simply need an ‘injection’. The needle is about 3mm wide so more like a sharp cotton bud than a needle.

“You load up the 2mm x 12mm capsule, give the area a local anaesthetic and jab in the implant needle. Once you’ve wiggled it to create a big enough hole under the skin, you inject the capsule, mop up the blood and leave it to heal.

“It’s not something done on a wider commercial (or professional) level at the moment.”

Each chip would be initialised and registered on a network so that it can be recognised later.


WHAT ARE THE LEGAL IMPLICATIONS?

Dino Burbidge, Director of Technology and Innovation at WCRS, told The Sun Online:

"It’s really more of a human rights issue mixed with a fair dollop of data security and privacy," he said.

"Do parents 'own' children? There’s a lively debate in legal circles about where the edges of parental influence over children are.

"In recent years, it has become more clear - children have as many rights to their body as you have to yours. For me, it’s clear, no parents have the ultimate right to mutilate their child, even if they think it’s for the best."

He said we also need to think about the data encoded on the chip.

He added: "Who owns it? And if you don’t want it any more, is the data sensitive and should you return it? Do you have any guarantee that your data won’t be used for something you didn’t consent to? You read all of the terms and conditions before you signed them, right?

"Finally, if you are using your chip as a ‘gateway’ tracker, this movement data is both attractive for commercial use (such as advertising or market research) as well as crime fighting or migration checks.

"Human rights can be very blurry if you have a tracker but don’t want to be tracked."

Dino says, currently, the chips are “pretty dumb” and can only hold “an ID number and a tiny but of data”. They do not yet have the power to track children.

“The biggest misunderstanding about these ‘microchips’ is that they can’t really track anything, at least not how we think,” he said.

“Imagine them like a bar code on a tin of beans. If a shop wafts the barcode in front of a scanner they now know where the beans are… they are where the shop is located.

“If you now take the beans home and pop them in your cupboard, there’s no way for the shop to now know where the beans are. They need the scanner to ‘discover’ the beans in their new location. That’s how these chips work.”

He added: “It’s only possible to ‘track’ them if you have a scanner or security gate with a scanner in. The scanners only work from about 2cm away, much like swiping a card on public transport.”

 Dino said a mobile phone would be an easier way to keep track of your child (Picture posed by models)
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Dino said a mobile phone would be an easier way to keep track of your child (Picture posed by models)Credit: Getty

Dino said people often “get confused” as they imagine “those big satellite trackers that scientists attach to elephants or migrating whales”.

He added: “They have whacking great big batteries and aerials sticking out. You can definitely track those from a long way away, even from space, but I’m also sure your child wouldn’t appreciate the 2kg plastic box strapped to their neck.”

Dino believes there is virtually no benefit of microchipping your kids at the moment, and doubts they would deter potential kidnappers.

“The microchips only work if you actively scan them. All the kidnapper needs to do is avoid RFID scanners, which is pretty easy,” he said.

“Even if the kidnapper (or dog-napper for that matter) did discover a chip, wafting a strong magnet over it will disable the sensitive radio frequency coils it contains.

 Microchips have to be implanted quite close to the skin as they can only be scanned at a distance up to about 2mm
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Microchips have to be implanted quite close to the skin as they can only be scanned at a distance up to about 2mmCredit: Solent News

"That’s how the security tags work in shops. Once magnetised, the chip is useless. It’s just not even worth being concerned about.”

But there is an easier way to keep track of your youngsters.

“Your phone is by far the best thing to track anyone, let alone one of your children,” he said.

“To truly ‘track’ anything, you need something with a fair amount of power (a battery) so that it can ping its location on a regular basis. That’s what a phone already is.

“It can track through GPS if it can see the sky, through mobile phone masts as well as local Wifi signals.

“In short, your phone is a sophisticated tracking machine that can use pretty much anything around to locate you. It’s also the thing most kids of secondary school age won’t leave home without.

“If it’s the choice of a cool smart phone or a lumpy, dumb chip in your hand, the phone gets the vote every time.”