你愿意讓公司在你體內(nèi)植入芯片嗎？

At first blush, it sounds like the talk of a conspiracy theorist: a company implanting microchips under employees’ skin. But it’s not a conspiracy, and employees are lining up for the opportunity.

乍聽上去，這像是陰謀論者會談?wù)摰脑掝}：一家公司在雇員的皮膚下植入微型芯片。但它并不是陰謀，雇員們正排隊等待這樣一個機會。

On Aug. 1, employees at Three Square Market, a technology company in Wisconsin, can choose to have a chip the size of a grain of rice injected between their thumb and index finger. Once that is done, any task involving radio-frequency identification technology — swiping into the office building, paying for food in the cafeteria — can be accomplished with a wave of the hand.

8月1日，威斯康星州科技公司Three Square Market的雇員，可以選擇在自己的拇指和食指之間植入一枚米粒大小的芯片。一旦完成植入，任何涉及射頻識別技術(shù)的事項——開啟辦公樓的門禁、在食堂為食物付款——都可以在揮手之間完成。

The program is not mandatory, but as of Monday, more than 50 out of 80 employees at Three Square’s headquarters in River Falls, Wisconsin, had volunteered.

這并非一個強制性項目，但截至周一，位于河瀑市的該公司總部的80名員工當中已有50余人自愿報名。

The program — a partnership between Three Square Market and Swedish company Biohax International — is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States, but it has already been done at a Swedish company, Epicenter. It raises a variety of questions, both privacy- and health-related.

該項目——由Three Square Market和瑞典企業(yè)Biohax International合作實施——據(jù)信將在美國開同類項目的先河，不過瑞典公司Epicenter已經(jīng)做過類似的事情。它帶來了種種問題，既關(guān)乎隱私，也關(guān)乎健康。

“Companies often claim that these chips are secure and encrypted,” said Alessandro Acquisti, a professor of information technology and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. But “encrypted” is “a pretty vague term,” he said, “which could include anything from a truly secure product to something that is easily hackable.”

“企業(yè)常常宣稱這些芯片很安全，經(jīng)過加密，”卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學(Carnegie Mellon University)海因茨學院(Heinz College)信息科技與公共政策教授亞歷山德羅·奎斯蒂(Alessandro Acquisti)說。但“加密”是“一個相當模糊的說法，”他說，“所涉范圍甚廣，既有真正安全的產(chǎn)品，也有很容易被入侵的東西”。

Another potential problem, Acquisti said, is that technology designed for one purpose may later be used for another. A microchip implanted today to allow for easy building access and payments could, in theory, be used later in more invasive ways: to track the length of employees’ bathroom or lunch breaks, for instance, without their consent or even their knowledge.

奎斯蒂說，另一個潛在的問題是，服務(wù)于某一個目的的技術(shù)，日后可能會被用于另一個目的。理論上，今天被植入的讓人們得以更便捷地開啟門禁或付款的微型芯片，將來也可以有更具侵入性的應(yīng)用方式：例如，在雇員沒有同意，甚至并不知情的情況下，追蹤其去洗手間或午休的時長。

Todd Westby, chief executive of Three Square, emphasized that the chip’s capabilities were limited. “All it is is an RFID chip reader,” he said. “It’s not a GPS tracking device. It’s a passive device and can only give data when data’s requested.”

Three Square Market首席執(zhí)行官托德·韋斯特比(Todd Westby)強調(diào)，芯片的功能是有限的。“它只不過是射頻識別閱讀器芯片，”他說，“而非GPS追蹤設(shè)備。它是被動型設(shè)備，只有在收到數(shù)據(jù)索取請求時才會提供數(shù)據(jù)。”

Health concerns are more difficult to assess. Implantable radio-frequency transponder systems were approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2004 for medical uses. But in rare cases, according to the FDA, the implantation site may become infected, or the chip may migrate elsewhere in the body.

健康方面的擔憂更加難以評估。2004年，美國食品與藥品管理局(Food and Drug Administration，簡稱FDA)批準將可植入射頻應(yīng)答系統(tǒng)用于醫(yī)療用途。但來自FDA的信息顯示，在極少數(shù)情況下，植入位置或許會發(fā)生感染，芯片還有可能會遷移到身體的其他部位。