Chip may soon get under skin

WASHINGTON — The science of security may soon get under your skin.

A Florida technology company is preparing to seek government approval for a computer ID chip that would be implanted inside the body and could be used to store everything from secret codes to sensitive medical information.

Applied Digital Solutions' new "VeriChip" is another sign that Sept. 11 has catapulted the effort to secure America into a realm with uncharted possibilities — and also new fears for privacy.

"The problem is that you always have to think about what the device will be used for tomorrow," said Lee Tien, a senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group.

"It's what we call function creep. At first a device is used for applications we all agree are good, but then it slowly is used for more than it was intended," he said.

The company also is developing another implant device that would work in conjunction with the VeriChip to allow satellite tracking of an individual's every movement. The tracker is already attracting interest across the globe for tasks like foiling kidnappings, the company says.

Applied Digital, based in Palm Beach, Fla., says it soon will begin the process of getting Food and Drug Administration approval for the VeriChip, and intends to limit its marketing to companies that ensure its human use is voluntary.

"The line in the sand that we draw is that the use of the VeriChip would always be voluntarily," said Keith Bolton, chief technology officer and a vice president at Applied Digital. "We would never provide it to a company that intended to coerce people to use it."

More than a decade ago, Applied bought a competing company, Destron Fearing, which had been making chips implanted in animals. Those chips were bought mainly by animal owners wanting to provide another way for pound workers to identify a lost pet.

Chips for humans aren't that much different.

But company officials say they were hesitant to market the chips for people because of ethical questions — until the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"It's a sad time . . . when people have to wonder whether it's safe in their own country," Bolton said.

The makers of the chip also foresee it being used to help emergency workers, for instance, diagnose a lost Alzheimer's patient or access an unconscious patient's medical history.