U.S. Company Implants Microchips Into Employees’ Hands

It might sound outlandish, but the news is true. Wisconsin tech company Three Square Market has teamed up with Swedish company Biohax to offer their employees microchips to be implanted inside of their hands.

The New York Times reports that the chip, about the size of a grain of rice, will be inserted between the first finger and the thumb. Employees can then raise their hand to their computers, locked doors, and payment stations at the cafeteria to use their microchips.

Fifty employees have signed up to receive the microchip on August 1st. Software engineer Sam Bengtson told the New York Times, “It was pretty much 100 percent yes right from the get-go for me. In the next five to 10 years, this is going to be something that isn’t scoffed at so much, or is more normal. So I like to jump on the bandwagon with these kind of things early, just to say that I have it.”

NBC News reports that the company has stated the microchips cannot be hacked nor GPS tracked. They also said it’s easily removable like a “splinter,” though it looks quite a bit bigger than a little shard of wood.

Duke University computer science professor Vincent Conitzer worries, “If most employees agree, it may become a workplace expectation. Then, the next iteration of the technology allows some additional tracking functionality. And so it goes until employees are expected to implant something that allows them to be constantly monitored, even outside of work.”