No, this is not the script for the next episode of Black Mirror. A Swedish company specializing in microchip implants has developed a health pass to wear under the skin.
In the country, several thousand Swedes have had an electronic implant inserted under the skin in recent years to replace keys, business cards, train tickets… and for some now their vaccination pass, developed by the company DSruptive Subdermals.
“Keep my personal information with me”
“I think it’s very much part of my integrity to be ‘chipped’, to keep my personal information with me,” says Amanda Back, a Stockholmer who uses the DSruptive Subdermals subcutaneous chip. The homeland of the series Real humans is one of the strongholds of “biohackers” (“biopirates”) convinced that this type of solution is the future of humanity, despite the concerns they raise.
“I programmed the chip so that my health pass was on the chip. The reason is that I always want to have it handy and when I read my chip I just slide my phone over the chip and then I unlock it and it opens, ”says Hannes Sjoblad, the boss of DSruptive Subdermals, while the PDF of his Swedish health pass is displayed. “An implanted microchip costs around a hundred euros for the most advanced versions, and if we compare it for example to connected bracelets which generally cost twice the price, an implant can be kept for thirty or forty years. While a bracelet can be kept for three or four years, ”argues the entrepreneur.
“No one should force someone to wear an implant”
For him, the health pass is only one of the possible examples of application, which “will be more of something for the winter of 2021-2022”, he slips optimistically. The Swedish entrepreneur, who says he is “very interested in privacy issues, however views with” great concern that many people see chip implants as frightening or surveillance technology. “
His implants “don’t have a battery, they can’t transmit a signal on their own, so they’re basically asleep, they can’t tell where you are, they only activate when touched with a finger. smartphone, ”emphasizes Hannes Sjoblad. All users are volunteers, but if someone made them compulsory for inmates or the elderly in retirement homes, “you will find me on the barricades to fight against that”, he judges. “No one should force someone to wear an implant.”