Must read: "uberveillance," "ambient technology," "ubiquitous computing," "ingest­ible bugs" and nanotechnology

we've been picking up bits and pieces of this all over the place, but this is one of the first concise summaries i've seen of the totality of what's going on...

Government and corporate officials responsible for compliance with privacy laws in Canada and Europe are using a whole new language in 2007. Much of the jargon has passed by the American public. So listen up. This is important.

At their annual meeting this fall in Montreal, there was little of the traditional talk among the international privacy people about the nuts and bolts of data protection. Instead, there were urgent and distressed discussions about "uberveillance," "ambient technology," "ubiquitous computing," "ingest­ible bugs" and nanotechnology.

[...]

[T]his new environment may render obsolete the three decades' old regime for protecting privacy, which merely gives certain rights of access to citizens. What good is checking the accuracy of your own information in a system if the essence of the system is to keep track of where you are? What good is notification about a new system if it's quite simply everywhere?

One form of this new technology is human-area networking, which permits the human body to be the conduit for electronic transmissions--of information, instructions, behavior and a lot more.

"We are entering a new era in privacy. Current con­cepts of consent will not be adequate for this," says Ian Kerr, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology at the University of Ottawa, who seems to be the scholar in North America most aware of this trend.

And how about an RFID identifying chip that may be swallowed by humans--an ingestible bug. Last February, Eastman-Kodak (nyse: EK - news - people ), no longer your father's camera company, filed for patent protection for this new device. The patent filing suggested potential uses, including monitoring "bodily events," tracking how a person's digestive track is absorbing medicine, or verifying how a specific medicine is interacting with other drugs in one's body. The RFID tag would disintegrate eventually, the company says.

European officials are using terms like ubiquitous computing and pervasive or invasive comp­uting. One of them said that ambient intelligence is an even greater challenge to European privacy enforcers than terrorism.

Ambient intelligence refers to an environment in which electronic devices support human beings in their daily activities in a way that conceals the computers' inner workings. This will involve embedding tiny chips inside the body, customizing them to the individual and anticipating needs of the individual.

Michael G. Michael, a theologian and technology historian at the University of Wollongong, in New South Wales, Aus­tralia, says that he originated the term uberveillance to describe the new environment. The stem "uber" means "over" or "super" in German. He thinks the pervasive monitoring will lead to increased cases of insanity and mental distress. "Mental illness will become an increasingly confronting factor as these issues develop," he frowned.

Another threatening term often used in these contexts is nanotechnogy, which refers to a miniaturization of technology allowing applications originally deemed impossible.

Still another term is biobanking, which, in the words of an IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) developer, "aims to empower researchers with unprecedented access to critical molecular and clinical information to accelerate a more personalized paradigm of medicine." Biobanks--sometimes called biorepositories or tissue banks--are a critical resource for 21st century clinical research and medicine because they naturally generate lots of genomic and phenotypic data. "Combining the wealth of genetic and molecular information now emerging with patient records and other clinical records will help researchers understand disease at the molecular level, ultimately leading to innovative new personalized therapies and treatments."

Even--especially– children are already subjects of this pervasive monitoring. Web sites like Neopets.com, Webkinz.com, Surveysmash.com and Barbie.com manipulate children by offering bonus points for loyalty to products and to the site. Children are coerced into visiting on a regular basis. They are forced to give care, love and attention to fictional characters and animals. Collecting information on child-oriented Web sites is regulated by American law (even though kids, of course, have little difficulty circumventing the parental consent rules), but manipulating children online is not regulated.

Surveillance systems require huge investments, which require government backing, and so it's important for taxpayers--not to mention consumers and parents--to stay up to date on these trends. As to be expected, an industry segment is growing around the new emphasis. Just this month, O'Reilly Media announced a conference next May for "the location industry," to discuss "location-based technology."

it's the nanotechnology that disturbs me most... we could very well be ingesting surveillance technology completely unbeknownst to us...

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Gee, I guess I had better have my RFID tracking chip removed, eh?

this oughta throw a monkey wrench into plans for additional intrusions on privacy...

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients' medical records almost instantly. The FDA found "reasonable assurance" the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005's top "innovative technologies."

But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.

"The transponders were the cause of the tumors," said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.

Leading cancer specialists reviewed the research for The Associated Press and, while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people.

can't be good news for these people...



[UPDATE]

well, well, well, what have we here...

The FDA ... stands by its approval of the technology.

Did the agency know of the tumor findings before approving the chip implants? The FDA declined repeated AP requests to specify what studies it reviewed.

The FDA is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which, at the time of VeriChip's approval, was headed by Tommy Thompson. Two weeks after the device's approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Thompson left his Cabinet post, and within five months was a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options.

Thompson, until recently a candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, says he had no personal relationship with the company as the VeriChip was being evaluated, nor did he play any role in FDA's approval process of the RFID tag.

anyone see anything in the least bit surprising about another bush administration toadie being involved in something dicey...?

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