While BioHax was forced to wind down its chip-implanting services during the pandemic, Österlund is still bullish on the technology shifting from party tricks to mainstream use. “So whenever I put my phone in my hand, I would call my wife. “The first thing I did, I put a call trigger,” Österlund tells me. He decided to give it a try, and implanted an NFC chip under his skin. After the biohacker came across NFC chips, which were encased in a biocompatible glass casing, he began to wonder whether the chip frequencies would be damaged when placed in a saline environment like the human body-or whether they could still be sensed by an NFC chipreader. “I’ve been doing body modification for a large part of my life and I knew how to put stuff in your body without hurting it,” he says. Österlund’s own journey with microchipping, which began years ago, was spurred out of a similar curiosity (and love of a little risk). “The reception of it was incredible,” he adds. “We scanned and built an app for the phone, so we could just program your chip,” he explains, allowing shoppers to scan the items that they wanted and pay for them. As interested passersby volunteered to get a microchip implanted into their hand, Österlund says his team aimed to show them a possible future for retail. During Dubai’s annual GITEX tech event in 2019, he showed off the microchip technology developed by his startup, BioHax, at UAE telecom Etisalat’s stand. Österlund speaks from firsthand experience. “I think the starting point, however, would be as slightly more exclusive service,” where businesses allow customers to validate special memberships, make crypto payments, or show their digital IDs using their body chip implants. “I’d say definitely has a lot of potential in the Middle East,” he says, after I reach out to him on LinkedIn. When it comes to cultural acceptance, Swedish biohacker Jowan Österlund is of the opinion that UAE residents are more likely to side with the Swedes. Online commentators even compared the implant to the ‘Mark of the Beast,’ or the Devil’s mark described in the Bible’s Book of Revelation. Some spectators took to Three Square’s Facebook page and urged their employees to quit, while others filled its Google reviews page with one-star ratings. After the US-based Three Square Market held a widely-publicized event to implant microchips under the skin of their employees in 2017, the vending machine company was forced to deal with a barrage of criticism. Human microchipping has become less provocative in countries like Sweden. “Just the idea that someone can retrieve information from inside you without you knowing is frightening,” the artist told WIRED in 2002.
Kac describes the piece as part of a commentary on the ethical implications of the technology. As part of his performance, known as Time Capsule, Kac became the first human to register himself in a remote database. At the time, NFC and RFID chip implants were largely used to identify livestock or recover stray pets. Back in 1997, the performance artist Eduardo Kac inserted a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip into his left ankle in front of his audience in Sao Paulo, Brazil. THE PRACTICE (OR ART) of human microchipping dates back almost a quarter of a century. Will its inhabitants embrace the microchip implant as the future of microelectronics-or will they avoid it at all costs? Some have even described the technology as an Orwellian omen, and warn that our chips could eventually be turned against us.Īs the Lanour nail technician conceals the microchip on my nail with gold glitter, I start to wonder how the Middle East will react to the technology.
These are capabilities that have fired the imaginations of technophiles and transhumanists for years.Īt the same time, privacy activists have expressed alarm over some of the darker possibilities raised by the technology. I might even get away with forgetting to carry my smartphone, on occasion. Forget my business cards, I’d be able to leave my wallet and keys at home. Still, as I head to the bare, white tables lining the salon, and watch my nail technician open a sealed bag to reveal a grain-sized golden chip, I suddenly feel like a guinea pig.Īfter speaking with Makarem, I can envision a future where I’ll be able to program a chip on my nail to act as a keycard to my apartment, validate a train ticket, or transmit money from my bank account. I sent the salon’s nail technicians a link to a catchy animation on the WIRED website so that I can easily show off our magazine to my future sources (much to my friends’ bemusement, my colleagues’ amusement, and my editor’s delight).
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