Human implantable “black-box” technologies need greater scrutiny

Beverley Head
Thursday, 13 August 2009 09:54

Business IT - Security

This is the first time the IEEE’s ISTAS conference has been held in Australia. Five areas of particular interest have been identified, namely: automatic identification; location based services; social networking; nano-technology; and, privacy, security and human rights.

Dr Michael said that it was important that innovators “designed with an ethical backbone” as innovation “pursued in a vacuum will turn us into the victims of our own invention.”

She said that there was a need for proper debate regarding emerging technology’s application, and also for well drafted legislation which might eventually govern how some of the new technologies could be used. In some US States for example flawed legislation governing this issue had emerged, meaning that although the State could not enforceably microchip an individual, “your mum and dad can,” at least in Ohio. 

Acknowledging that there was no comparable legislation in Australia, Dr Michael said it was important for policy makers to properly inform themselves about the technology and its implications now, rather than construct legislation on the fly as new technologies arrived in the marketplace.

She also stressed the need for consumers of emerging technology to be properly informed about issues such as the long term implications of exposure to nano-materials, or implantable location tracking devices which might be easily implanted, but prove difficult to remove.

ISTAS ’10 will run from 7-9 June 2010, and more details are available at http://www.ieeessit.org/. Dr Michael is seeking abstracts by 2 October 2009.