IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2016 - 8

acted as a personal health record
(PHR) unique ID [8]. In 2004, the
company VeriChip had an implant
device approved by the FDA for use
in humans [9]. The device was to be
inserted in the right tricep, but as
applications for access control and
electronic payment were trialled,
the device soon found itself in peo-
ple's wrists and hands for usability
[10]. Still that event report had got me
thinking. How could a company (or for
that matter a government administra-
tion) be so inept in creating a device
for implantation with no removal pro-
cess? Of course, had the VeriChip
device not been related to any health
application, it would not have required
any FDA approval whatsoever, which
is equally problematic when ethical
questions are considered.
The questions that stem from this
mini case are numerous. But perhaps
the most important one is: does a
standard set by a standards or regu-
latory body open the floodgates to
propelling a given innovation for-
ward, even if that innovation is con-
troversial or even viewed as risky or
unethical by the community at large?
I had to ask myself the pros and
cons of spearheading such a stan-
dard into Australia and New Zealand.
Standards at the local level begin to
gather momentum when they are rec-
ognized by the Australian Standards
organization, but more so when they
are picked up and highlighted by the
International Standards Organisation
(ISO). There are also no commen-
surate "ethics applications" accom-
panying the submission of human
augmentation devices, as noted by
Joe Carvalko, a U.S.-based patent
attorney and implant recipient [11].
Did I really wish to be involved
in such a process when I believe
deeply, for anything other than thera-
peutics and prosthesis, there should
not be a standard? Do I think this is
the future of e-payments being sold
to us? There have been countless

Figure 2. A surgeon implants British scientist Dr. Mark Gasson in his left hand with
an RFID microchip (Mar. 16, 2009). Mark's Ph.D. scholarship with Prof. Kevin Warwick was
sponsored by the author's former employer Nortel Networks. Photo taken: March 16,
2009, 14:44:22. Photo courtesy of Paul Hughes.

that the CFA received funding for,
in terms of the voluntary contri-
butions of its representatives and
membership being seconded to
standards committees.
As Regina and I brainstormed,
I described a few projects pertain-
ing to emerging technologies that
required urgent attention from the

8

consumer perspective. But the one
that stuck out in my mind as requir-
ing standardization was non-medi-
cal implants in humans (Figure 2). I
kept thinking about the event report
I cited in 2007 published on the
MAUDE database of the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) web site,
for the "removal of an implant" that
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

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september 2016



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