Speed through the checkout with just a wave of your arm
By Valerie Elliot
Shoppers could soon pay for goods using a microchip implanted under the skin
IT MAY sound like a sci-fi fantasy but shoppers may one day be able to pay their grocery bills using a microchip implanted in their body.
The idea is already catching on with today’s iPod generation. According to research released today by the Institute for Grocery Distribution (IGD), a retail think-tank, almost one in ten teenagers and one in twenty adults are willing to have a microchip implanted to pay shop bills and help to prevent card or identity fraud and muggings.
A quick scan of the arm would connect immediately to bank details and payments could be made swiftly. Such microchips are already used in cats, dogs and horses. They are used in cattle and sheep so that consumers can trace their food from farm to plate and are also being used to help to combat drugs counterfeiting.
But now the retail industry is looking at body chips among a range of biometric payment methods, including fingerprint and iris recognition. So far the only example of a human body chip being used is at the VIP Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, where people wear bikinis and shorts and there is nowhere to carry wallets and purses.
The club offers clients a microchip, injected in the arm, which gives them access to certain areas of the club and acts as a payment method at the bar. This chip, made by the VeriChip Corporation, is a glass capsule about the size of a grain of rice, which sits under the skin. It carries a ten-digit personal number that can be linked to a person’s bank account, and has been a success at the club.
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“With teenagers happy to use MySpace (the networking website) and blogs to share details of their private lives, there may be less concern surrounding privacy than for other generations.”
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