Embedding chips under your skin isn’t new and we’ve seen it done for medical purposes, or on animals for tracking, studying, and scientific purposes, however over in Sweden a startup by the name of Epicenter has started to embed microchips into its employees for none of those purposes, but rather for convenience.
According to a report from AP, this microchip will basically function as an access pass for employees in which they can get in and out of the office, operate printers, buy smoothies, and so on simply by waving their hand at the terminal. So instead of carrying around an access card which can be lost or stolen, this microchip ensures that employees will have their access pass on them all the time.
Patrick Mesterton, co-founder and chief executive of Epicenter was quoted as saying, “The biggest benefit, I think, is convenience. It basically replaces a lot of things you have, other communication devices, whether it be credit cards or keys.” Unsurprisingly there are concerns such as privacy and security, where according to Ben Libberton, a microbiologist at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, hackers could potentially gain a ton of information from these embedded microchips.
So far it seems that employees who were asked about the microchips were pretty excited by the concept, but we guess only time will tell whether or not this will become a mainstay for companies in the future.
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