Tech firm implants employees with microchips

A vending machine company in Wisconsin is to implant microchips in its employees, enabling them to scan into the building and buy food at work.

Three Square Market is offering the technology, known as Radio-Frequency Identification or RFID, to its 85 staff on a voluntary basis, according to USA Today. The chips, about the size of a grain of rice, can be quickly implanted between the thumb and forefinger.

"The company is expecting over 50 staff members to be voluntarily chipped," it said in a press release - out of 85 head office employees, the BBC reports.

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Although the chips are already in common usage, particularly in pets, implanting them in people could either "excite or alarm you", Fortune says, in a piece entitled "Something Big Brother Would Love?"

Reaction on Twitter was also mixed:

Each under-the-skin chip costs around $300 (£230), which will be paid by the company. Chief Executive Todd Westby responded to privacy concerns by saying the chips are not GPS-enabled and so cannot be used to track staff.

Three Square provides technology for break-rooms and vending machines. And while microchipping employees "may sound like something out of a horror film," in the words of USA Today, the company hopes the programme will see it lead the way in RFID tech, which it believes will soon be used for everything from sharing business cards to using copy machines.

"Eventually, this technology will become standardised allowing you to use this as your passport, public transit, all purchasing opportunities, etc," Westby said in the company statement.

Three Square may be the first in the US to offer the technology but not the first in the world. The company is partnering with Swedish company BioHax International, where many employees have sported the implants for at least three years, the BBC says.