VeriChip Implants Allow Companies to Track Employees for Security

By Linda Orlando

CityWatcher.com in Cincinnati, OH, has contracts with six cities to provide security cameras and Internet monitoring of high-crime areas. The company provides digital video cameras and high-tech surveillance equipment that monitors and records high-crime areas to catch crimes as they are being committed. The data and images recorded by the cameras are stored in vaults and kept for police departments.

Now CityWatcher is trying out a program in house that they may be able to integrate into their own offerings to customers. Three of the company’s seven employees have been implanted with tiny radio frequency identification chips (RFIDs) to allow them access to secure vaults. Chief Executive Sean Darks said that the program is voluntary. "I have one myself," Darks said. "I’m not going to ask somebody to do something I wouldn’t do myself. None of my employees are forced to get the chip to keep their job."

About the size of a grain of rice, the microchip is inserted just below the skin and contains only a unique, 16-digit identifier. The chip itself does not contain any other data, and emits no signal whatsoever. It does not contain any GPS tracking capabilities, so a person’s movements cannot be tracked. The passive RFID microchip merely acts as a keycard, allowing the person it is implanted in to enter restricted areas. The only difference is that this tiny keycard is physically part of the person it is assigned to. Because it doesn’t have to be carried or worn, it is virtually impossible to compromise security by the chip being lost, stolen, misplaced, or counterfeited.

VeriChip, the American company that makes the implants, designed the RFID chips primarily for medical purposes. RFID chips in patient tags worn on the wrist are used with security systems in hospitals and nursing homes to prevent residents from wandering out of designated areas. Attachable tags containing RFID chips can be affixed to medical equipment, laptops, tools, and supplies to ensure that assets can be found when needed, tracked for maintenance and replenishment, and protected from theft, loss, and hoarding.

RFID technology allows information to be collected quickly and automatically and does not require contact or line-of-sight. The reader, placed in a physical location that requires secure access, generates an electromagnetic field through its antenna. Once the coded microchip enters the detection area, it becomes active when receiving a signal through its own antenna. A small amount of radio frequency energy passes from the reader to energize the dormant microchip, which then emits a radio frequency signal transmitting the individual’s unique verification number. This number can then be used for such purposes as accessing personal medical information in a password-protected database or assessing whether somebody has authority to enter into a high-security area.

VeriChip claims to be the only company in the world to offer human-implantable chips that have been patented and approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The chip can be inserted just beneath the skin during a quick, painless outpatient procedure similar to getting a shot. The chip can then be scanned when necessary with a proprietary VeriChip reader, either handheld or wall-mounted.

CityWatcher has had the program going for a few months, testing it to see the effectiveness. The technology has been in existence since before World War II, but is usually used in modern applications such as tracking vehicles and pets. The Attorney General’s office in Mexico implanted RFIDs in some employees in 2004 to restrict access to secure areas, but CityWatcher’s trial program is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States. According to Craig Offman of the Financial Times, "The VeriChip may be an extreme solution for extreme times, but the days it could be dismissed as futuristic fantasy are clearly long past."