INJECTED ELECTRONICS: COULD IMPLANTS REPLACE CREDIT CARDS?

Advancements in Tiny, Connected-Medical Technology Could Pave The Way for Wallet-Free Payments

Medical researchers are increasingly interested in developing smaller, wearable devices that can both monitor and treat patients, such as continuous-glucose meters, or Medtronic’s implantable ECG monitor. Just recently the Lieber Research Group at Harvard University unveiled an injectable mesh that is able to identity electrical signals within the brains of mice. The mesh was injected using a needle just 0.1mm in diameter. Injected electronics are becoming a reality and this will have impact far beyond medicine. Many work places have already replaced traditional ID cards with retinal scans, palm prints and other biometrics. But certain biometric identifiers are vulnerable to fraud and can also be obstructed for example by sweat or humidity. Implanted electronics may offer a more secure way. It’s not too hard to a future where people carry around their ID cards and money as injected implants; we’ve seen it all before in sci-fi films. The technology is not quite at that level yet, there remain significant hurdles to overcome before this could become a reality.

However, technology such as wireless data transmission, sensors that run on tiny amounts of power, and RFID devices could evolve into miniaturized injectable systems that could allow us to prove our identity and pay for goods without the need to carry a wallet or purse. Vaishali Kamat, head of digital health at Cambridge Consultants, believes implants could replace the various cards we currently carry around with us each day. “Several services could be enabled if you think of the implanted electronics as a replacement for some of the gadgets or things we carry with us today, for example for identification and payment,” Kamat adds, “A tiny chip placed subcutaneously in your wrist could serve as your credit card or driver’s licence, for example.” There are many people who would be uncomfortable with the idea of being tagged and so readily identifiable. Security and privacy issues apart, we might not be too far away from a time where we pay for our groceries by passing our wrist-implanted chip over a scanner as the delivery robot unloads our shopping.