Mandatory microchip implant for all foreigners?

Applied Digital pushes microchip to plant in foreigners
for tracking

http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/to
day/business_c312779d0594902e00ee.html

By Deborah Circelli, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 20, 2001

PALM BEACH -- Today's security measures don't work very
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well, says Richard Sullivan, pointing to the Sept. 11
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terror attacks on New York and Washington.

He's says he's got a better idea: a microchip instead
of a green card. Foreigners who pass through customs or
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immigration could be injected with the chip, allowing
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officials to monitor their activities better and keep
terrorists out.

"Man today is more than ever converging with
technology," said Sullivan, who is CEO of the Palm
Beach-based tech company Applied Digital Solutions
(Nasdaq: ADSX, 45 cents). "I think the positives
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overwhelmingly overcome any small negatives. The
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government is more prepared, for the overall benefit of
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our citizens, to advocate some of these changes."
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Sullivan's company has high hopes for the implantable
technology, which it unveiled Wednesday. Until now, the
microchips -- called VeriChips -- have been used for
tracking and identifying animals.
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Applied Digital has had a patent for such devices since
1999. The new technology would make Applied Digital the
first company in the nation to sell microchips designed
to be implanted in human beings.

But privacy groups reacted with outrage Wednesday to
Sullivan's idea for monitoring foreigners. America is
not that desperate, one group said, citing a violation
of "bodily integrity."

"That is so unconstitutional," said Randall Marshall,
legal director for the Miami chapter of the American
Civil Liberties Union. "I can't imagine this surviving
a constitutional challenge. It just simply goes way too
far outside the realm of what we believe in as a
society."

Sullivan said the product will be marketed in January
in South America while the company seeks approval in
the United States from the Food and Drug
Administration. Approval is expected in 18 months.

A New Jersey surgeon who serves on the board of Owings,
Md.-based Medical Advisory Systems, which is about to
combine with a subsidiary of Applied Digital, injected
himself with two of the VeriChips five days after the
terror attacks.

Richard Seelig inserted the chips in his forearm and
hip as part of the clinical process Applied Digital
will have to conduct to receive FDA approval, Sullivan
said. Seelig, 55, referred all questions Wednesday to
Sullivan but told the Los Angeles Times he felt
compelled to have a secure form of identification after
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Sept. 11.

"I was so compelled by what had happened," Seelig told
the Times. "One of the potential applications suddenly
jumped out -- the ability to have a secure form of
identification -- and I felt I had to take the next
step."

The chips are about the size of a grain of rice and
contain an identification number or other data, such as
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medical information, and a person's address and phone
number.

The chips have no internal power source. Their data
can't be read without a scanner close at hand. The next
generation of body chips -- one that transmits signals
from a distance -- is several years away.

The chip is the same as the one Applied Digital's
subsidiary uses in more than 1 million animals, but the
VeriChip can be used in humans with a pacemaker,
artificial heart valves or orthopedic knee devices. If
a patient needs help, a hospital can use a scanner to
obtain information.

In five years, Sullivan said he can see the chips being
used in children, the elderly, prisoners, and by
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employers at facilities such as airports and nuclear
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plants. Society in general could use them instead of
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ATM or credit cards, he said.

But Evan Hendricks, editor and publisher of Privacy
Times, a Washington, D.C.-based newsletter, said it's
one thing for an individual to choose to implant the
device for medical purposes, but it's crossing the line
when parents start putting them in their children or
employers require them for employment.
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"This has been science fiction for most of our adult
life, but now we see the technology allows it,"
Hendricks said. "The problem is that it is happening in
a vacuum where there are not adequate privacy laws."

Los Angeles Times contributed to this story.