Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Money, microchips and monitoring – there’s no escaping the death of cash
further from home to access a branch.
A common defence is convenience. It makes sense when you jump in a taxi and realise you don’t have a fiver so use your contactless card. It is easier when the person behind you at Home Bargains shuffles their feet to tap and hurry the process.
However, convenience for the few at the expense of liberty for the many is merely another form of slavery. Does a cashless society or one world currency seem implausible?
Take Bar Soba. 17 years ago, just as microchips were becoming common currency for pets, this niche Glasgow hostelry provided a “digital wallet” for the chancers looking to dodge their round. Regulars could get a Verichip – no bigger than a grain of rice – implanted in their arms. Using the same technology as the chip now used on bank cards, you walk through a scanner at the entrance. By the time you reach the bar, your drink is there, money has left your account and a friendly barman greets you by name.
Steve van Soest, one among 100 people to be “chipped” at Barcelona’s Baja Beach Club, said: “The main benefit is you can go out without having to carry a wallet, which can get easily lost.”
Steve expressed no reservations about the implant and said he only felt it when stretching his arm. He added:
“It would be great if this catches on and you could put all your personal details and medical records on it. If I was involved in an accident, doctors could scan me and find my blood group and allergies.”
Imagine a UK Government official: “Facial recognition software to apprehend criminals, drone surveillance systems to find missing persons and satellite navigation technology to detect illegal immigrants. No more Sarah Everards, Madeleine McCanns nor Jamie Bulgers. And, also, your children already use fingerprint recognition for school meals and you use retinal scans to access your workplace, why not use an implantable microchip to buy your groceries? No more waiting for the pensioner fuddling with her purse. Just zip and go. Get chipped now!”
The pandemic has accelerated technological reliance to the extent where everything we do leaves a digital footprint. Your smartphones are listening. You know her, her name is Alexa.
The whistleblowing detractors who optimistically pioneered social media now tell us their former employers know our favourite shows, spending habits, the next car you’ll get or lipstick your wife will buy. To paraphrase Arundhati Roy: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, you can hear the vibrations of her frequency fast approaching.”