Today one person I was talking to made an obvious point about the fear of biometric horrors of the new world and possible implementation of chips into our bodies. She said what many of us already know: at this point most people in the western world are already “chipped” by their use of technology anyway.
Most advanced phones now have either a fingerprint or a face recognition feature that many of us use (no, I do not). We can measure our heart rate with a smartphone. Many sports apps and crypto mining apps require constant access to the person’s location. Most web browsers track our activities online unless we prohibit it in settings. Our search history and visited websites data is sent who knows where. We use phone navigators when driving, or we use car navigators that are connected to the network anyway. Our social networks profiles, photos, conversations, likes and dislikes, etc., are being visible to whoever needs to see them. In fact, the life of a standard human being of a “developed country” is exposed completely. And even if you don’t have tons of these gadgets and live in a post-war or current war dump, chances are you are being watched from everywhere anyway. I was watching these series called Fauda, about Palestinian Israeli conflict, and I don’t know if it reflects the reality of life, but the special forces can actually use drones that zoom in on a person and can track and record pretty much anyone running around the city when they need to, plus street cameras, etc.
So the point the girl was making is that... well... why be paranoid about chips and electronic passports if we are already f*cked?
I say different.
First of all, if you do want to avoid total exposure, it is still in your hands to limit it. Don’t use phone recognition features, switch to a tomitive phone, don’t use common social networks, or do it anonymously, through proxies, etc. Forget about Facebook and its likes, don’t turn on website tracking. Don’t use stupid apps that always track your location.
And in any case, if you do want to vanish completely, you can always go offline, throw away the phone, go live in the forest, or I don’t know what else, the point is all these devices aren’t INSIDE you body. An electronic chip, on the other hand, is, and I’m sure it will be illegal to even try to physically remove it.
Implementation of whatever into a persons body is a whole another step of invasion. You can’t compare it to social networks or even face recognition on the phone.
Maybe that’s what it is. All these fingerprinting, location tracking apps, social networks, etc... Maybe they were created as a step toward something more serious, and people are getting used to them. We are being taught that it’s ok, so when something else comes along, we won’t struggle as much.