Post by Watchman on Jun 12, 2006 20:12:37 GMT -5
Jodie Sinnema, CanWest News Service; Edmonton Journal
EDMONTON -- Imagine a world where you're taken unconscious and with no identification to a hospital. The doctor scans the microchip implanted in your shoulder, downloads your medical identification number and links up with a secure network that says you're a diabetic and allergic to Tylenol.
Sounds ideal.
In a world where more than 230 physicians in the United States have bought microchips for implantation in patients, and where a club owner in Spain offers to implant VIP chips into posh people so they don't need to carry credit cards or identification, the ethics of human microchip technology needs to be debated in Canada, says a University of Ottawa professor.
"This is all happening relatively quickly," said Ian Kerr, an expert in ethics, law and technology who spoke Friday at the Access and Privacy Conference in Edmonton. "I don't think we're that far off."
Canada hasn't given its approval to microchips that can be implanted into humans for medical purposes. But since 2004, people in the U.S. can have $100 to $200 radio frequency microchips inserted under their skin. The rice-sized implant releases a patient-specific code when it is scanned. With that code, an authorized health-care professional can then link up to a network to find information on the patient's medications or prior treatments, similar to what might be available on Alberta's electronic health record system.
In the U.S., 97 health-care facilities and 230 physicians have jumped aboard. Harvard Medical School's chief information officer had one implanted in his body. Mexico's attorney general did the same thing so that he could access secure areas in his office.
For Alzheimer's patients who get lost, the technology could be particularly useful. Kerr said putting such a chip on equipment in a hospital say, a rare mobile cardiac machine also could help doctors find the machines quickly in an emergency.
But already, people have been able to clone the chips. While that doesn't give them complete medical information, issues of privacy and security must be raised, Kerr said.
VeriChip, the company that makes the technology, has opened offices in Vancouver and Ottawa.
Wal-Mart is looking into similar technology to track inventory and microchips are already used in pets.
A school near Sacramento, Calif., outraged parents when administrators made students wear identification badges outfitted with microchips. When the students walked through doors equipped with chip readers, teachers could monitor the students' whereabouts through their palm pilots.
"It can be in a knapsack, embedded in somebody's shoe or implanted in your shoulder," Kerr said. "It's hard to know what's around the corners with these kinds of things E Let's think a little bit about the implications before they happen because sometimes you can't put the genie back in the bottle."
Kerr said it's hard to know if Canada would approve the chips for human implantation.
Frank Work, Alberta's privacy commissioner, said he thinks it's inevitable.
"Worried or scared, you know that if there is an advantage to it, either economic or medical, someone is going to perfect it," Work said. "Someone is going to bring it to a point where it can be used in the near future.
"We'll do it in a well-intentioned way, wanting to look after people. But like with anything, as soon as you bring in the well-intentioned application, someone will figure out the evil application."
Edmonton Journal
© CanWest News Service 2006