Have a chip placed in your body with your medical information on it. Or one that you can pay with. It’s possible: a tattoo shop in Tilburg is the first in our country to do it. But the resistance to it is huge, it seems, if you read the reactions to it on social media. Nevertheless, we should not be mistaken: this is really the future, says Maarten Steinbuch, professor at Eindhoven University of Technology.
Steinbuch knows a lot about high-tech systems and immerses himself in new developments, such as these implants. Recently you can have a chip the size of a grain of rice placed in your body in Tilburg, at the height of your collarbone. With that chip you can measure your temperature and you can put your medical data on it, so that in the event of an accident the infirmary can immediately see what your blood group is.
“A chip in your body or in your phone: what’s the difference?”
Many people oppose such a chip because they feel that their privacy is being violated. Steinbuch does not see the problem that way: “There is not much difference whether you wear a chip in your body or in the smartphone in your pocket. In both cases, we need to be smart about privacy. That depends more on how you use your phone or chip.”
No, according to Steinbuch, the real reluctance lies in the control you want to have over your own body: “You also see that with corona vaccinations. There will always be a small group, five or ten percent, who, on the basis of conviction or belief, do not want to. But the 95 percent who do want it must also have the freedom to do it.”
But whether or not to have a chip: you should be able to determine that yourself, says Steinbuch: “Just like you decide for yourself whether or not you want treatment at the doctor. Or euthanasia or not. That is a fundamental right of us as human beings.”
“When a child is 18, it can decide for itself whether the chip is removed.”
Steinbuch previously suggested the possibility of implanting a chip in your child, so that you can always see where it is: “I think that makes sense, because of safety. But your child should also be able to have such a chip removed himself, without damage, when he is 18.”
You have to be careful that you favor people with a chip, says Steinbuch. “Suppose I can just walk through with my chip when I get on the train. Then other people should be able to use their phone to get on the train in the same way.”
Still, the resistance seems great. When Omroep Brabant brought the story about the medical chip last weekend, there were hundreds of negative reactions on Instagram: “Nooooit…. Sick world!!!!”
“You don’t want a pacemaker because it has a chip in it?”
“Just ask all those people who commented: ‘You get heart problems, don’t you want a pacemaker, because you don’t want a chip in your body? Or imagine you go blind and it turns out that a chip can be implanted that allows you to see again. Do you want it or not?’”
The vast majority of people will opt for a chip, Steinbuch thinks: “We have also been chipping our pets for a long time. When we started doing this twenty years ago, everyone also thought: we have to. But the most important thing remains: everyone can decide for themselves.”
READ ALSO: Joshua has a chip with medical data placed under his skin