Employee microchip tracking bill discussed

By GWEN BRISTOL
Minot Daily News
Feb. 10, 2007

BISMARCK – Discussion on a bill that could limit the use of implanted microchips in humans ignited plenty of what-if scenarios at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday.

The bill was presented by Sen. Randel Christmann, R-Hazen, with the intent to keep employers from forcing employees to have microchip implants for the purpose of closer supervision.

“The technology, if not there, is very close,” Christmann said. “We want to make sure employees are never pressured into this before it becomes a problem.”

“How far does it really go?” asked Bismarck resident Jim Oshanyk, who said the implanted microchips could keep track of an employee’s movements down to the number of hand repetitions. “They can keep very close tabs on you. My main concern is privacy.”

Oshanyk listed examples of microchip implant uses, including a business in Ohio that required some employees working on top-secret projects to have implants. He mentioned that in some areas, newborns receive implants that could track them if they were ever abducted.

Steve Bitz, also of Bismarck, said the microchip implantation could work like a UPC code, but could differentiate products individually and not just by type. In a human, it would work like an ID. Besides being a privacy issue, Bitz said there could be health risks. Irma Bitner, a registered nurse with Professional Home Care, agreed.

Bitner said some of the health concerns are that the chips could migrate inside a person’s body and could cause serious burns, especially in cases where implanted individuals had to have treatments like MRI scans.

She also said anyone who had the ability to read and clone the chips could steal the identity information stored on the chips.

“I prefer my records to be kept in a record room,” she said.

“I do not want mandatory implants in our children,” she said later. “Let them have the same freedoms we have had.”

One possible issue raised by committee members was that the bill could limit the way some criminals could be tracked electronically. Christmann’s position was to ban the microchip implantations and let those criminals be monitored by other electronic means.