In this blog post, we will examine whether the convenience provided by berry chip technology is worth the risk of personal information leakage.
In an information-based society, personal information is of great importance. The most basic and important role of personal information is to establish one’s identity among a large number of people. In other words, a clear standard is formed to distinguish each individual. What does this mean? It means that you can build an area that is clearly isolated from the hands of others and that only you can access. A bank account that only I can deposit and withdraw money from, an online post that only I can edit, and a cloud file that stores the owner’s files. In today’s computerized society, all of these conveniences require a key: personal information.
There are many types of keys used to access virtual spaces. Information is used in various ways, from credit cards used as a simple payment method to card-type access cards required to enter and exit company buildings to intangible accounts required to identify individuals on websites. But what if there was a key that could be inserted into the body and used on a regular basis? The VeriChip (short for verification chip) is a rice-grain-sized electronic circuit chip that can store the owner’s information. The VeriChip can be implanted under the skin and used semi-permanently, and it can interact with the surrounding environment at any time and exchange information. This is because berry chips are a type of RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) tag. RFID tags share information using radio waves with a reader that wants to read personal information, so the reader can recognize the tag even at a certain distance. When the reader recognizes the berry chip, it decodes the code stored in the berry chip to verify the owner’s identity, and through this, it accesses the owner’s virtual personal space stored in the database.
In the past, not everyone carried a personal identification device with them at all times, and even if they did, the range of its use was limited. However, the use of a berry chip will increase the versatility of personal information to an unprecedented level. All of the owner’s actions are recorded in the database through the berry chip, and this will enable the owner to receive the services that best suit them. In addition, because of the nature of the RFID chip, it can actively interact with the surrounding environment, making automatic payment, access control, and location tracking possible. This means that the all-encompassing city, once called the ubiquitous city, can become a reality. However, the nature of the VeriChip, which constantly and openly exchanges personal information, may eventually lead to the easy leakage of personal information. If anyone owns a device that can interact with the VeriChip, they can intercept personal information without the owner’s knowledge.
When the VeriChip was at the center of a heated controversy, many opponents argued against the commercialization of the VeriChip, citing the risk of personal information leakage and various conspiracy theories, such as privacy violations. As a result, production of the VeriChip was suspended in 2010. On the other hand, some argue that the risks of berry chips are overstated. They compare berry chips to credit cards, claiming that the risk of information leakage from berry chips is no different from the risk of existing media such as credit cards. According to this argument, it is quite contradictory that we are worried about berry chips but use credit cards and transportation cards without a care in the world. In addition, RFID tags, represented by transportation cards, can actually send and receive information only when they are within a certain distance of the reader. Considering this usage method, the argument is that there is no need to worry excessively about the risk of information leakage with the VeriChip alone.
However, I believe that berry chips pose a significant risk. First of all, berry chips are far more dangerous than existing means in terms of their intended use. How many different ways can you use a credit card? It is just a means of payment. Therefore, the damage caused by the theft of a credit card is limited to the amount of money in the linked bank account. However, the Berry Chip can provide all the information about the owner. Not only the owner’s basic personal information, but also everything about the owner’s daily life, such as their residence, main consumption items, and places they usually go, is stored in the database. In this case, once personal information is leaked, the damage will be beyond imagination. This means that anyone can use all the information about you, so it is possible for someone else to completely impersonate the owner. Depending on the criminal’s intention, everything owned by the owner can be registered as the criminal’s property or the owner can be accused of a crime they did not commit. It is even possible to exclude the owner from society altogether.
The benefits to criminals of extracting information stored in the VeriChip are enormous, and there are many ways they can exploit the information they extract. This makes the social system based on VeriChips more vulnerable to crime. For example, let’s assume that the database security of a credit card and a Berry Chip are similar. By hacking into the computer network of a credit card company, a criminal can obtain information such as the personal information of the credit card user, information related to the bankbook, and the usage history. Most of this information is not of much use to the criminal. Therefore, the number of criminals who would risk infiltrating the information network is relatively small. On the other hand, the database of the Berry Chip contains all the information about the user. And the profit that can be made by obtaining them is worth the risk for criminals. Therefore, attempts to access the Berry Chip network will occur much more frequently than in the case of credit cards. As a result, the security risk of the Berry Chip is much greater than that of credit cards.
Finally, the fact that the berry chip is embedded in the skin and cannot be lost may reduce the ability to deal with crime. For example, what should you do if you lose your credit card or learn of a situation in which someone else has used your balance without permission due to a leak of information in the computer network? The cardholder can quickly take action by immediately canceling the use of the credit card and getting a new one. You can delete the information stored on your credit card or destroy the card you were using. On the other hand, since berry chips are implanted in the body for semi-permanent use, destroying the existing berry chip and getting a new one is a much more cumbersome task than with credit cards. It is also difficult to delete the information stored in the database because it would cause significant damage to the user.
As such, the level of personal information protection of berry chips is very vulnerable compared to existing media in terms of the scale of damage, safety, and post-processing. We have clearly felt the importance of personal information protection through direct and indirect experiences in the information age. And we know that no matter how convenient it is, it should never be introduced without solid security. Of course, the technological advancements so far have also raised concerns about various risks. And there is a possibility that these problems could have been resolved by our ethical standards as the main users of the technology. In this respect, the concerns about the lengthy conspiracy theories related to the berry chip may be alleviated to some extent. However, unless a clear solution to the realistic risks discussed above is presented, the berry chip under the skin will become a blade and cause us terrible harm.
