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FORTUNE.COM// JA N.1 .19They point out that because biochips are inert
and passive they pose fewer privacy risks than
smartphones, which continually transmit
our whereabouts. Such logic hasn’t stopped
a drumbeat of scary stories about biochips
ushering in an Orwellian system of control.
Fictional portrayals of biohacking have also
promoted a dystopian view of the future.
“Every implant in any sci-fi movie is a tracker
or an explosive device,” Österlund says. “Look
atThe Matrix orBlade Runner orJohnny
Mnemonic. The implant is always connected
to something really creepy or bad.”
There are probably few better places than
Sweden to try to break those stereotypes.
Engineers in Sweden, whose population is
slightly bigger than New York City’s, have
invented the world’s first Internet calling app,
Skype; the largest music-streaming platform,
Spotify; and one of the first mobile phone
companies, Ericsson. Sweden is also almost
cashless, with less than 1% of purchases paid
for with banknotes and coins. “It is a cultural
thing,” Österlund says. “We have a faster adop-
tion rate in Sweden, and there is probably a
higher level of trust in our government than
[in] many other countries. We aren’t scared
that we will be taken advantage of.”
In some respects, biochipping is already
well accepted. Swedes and others have long
inserted biochips into their pets to find them
when they get lost. And heart pacemakers,
another type of biochip implant, have been in
wide use for decades. Yet many people remain
unconvinced about being chipped for digital
convenience. “From a business perspec-
tive, it looks like technology for technology’s
sake,” says Richard Oglesby, president of AZ
Payments Group, a global consulting firm
in Mesa, Ariz., that specializes in payments.
“Implanting chips is invasive, unnecessary,
and not particularly useful. There are wear-
able solutions that can easily and conveniently
accomplish the same things.”
Then again, it may be that biochipping
hasn’t yet caught on at scale because some of
its adherents have sprung from the counter-
culture universe of piercing parlors and tattoo
artists, not from corporate engineering labs.
Biohax’s Österlund, for example, founded
his first company, Cutting Edge, in 2004, as
a body-piercing business that specialized in
some far-out practices, like hot-steel skinNFC readers, effectively the enabling devices
for biochips, are proliferating. Last June, the
Car Connectivity Consortium, which includes
the world’s major automakers as well as tech
companies like Apple and Samsung, agreed
to a standard digital key system, allowing
drivers to open their car doors and start the
engine from an app on their smartphones. The
agreement does not mention customers being
able to insert the data for their car keys on a
chip inside their bodies. But it would require
almost no extra effort to do so, and every
biohacker I meet in Sweden tells me that losing
keys was one of the main motivations for being
chipped. The chip is encased in medical glass,
and it has a tiny antenna and integrated circuit
that transmit data when close to an electronic
reader. So far, Biohax chips have only one kilo-
byte of memory, but that will increase as the
possibilities of what chips can do expand.
In fact, once you start viewing the world
through the eyes of biohackers, more and
more aspects of current life begin to seem
absurd: the doctor’s receptionist, for example,
who digs out your personal medical record
from a filing cabinet; the bus driver who sells
you a paper ticket when you board; or the
times you scrounge for change for a restaurant
tip. All those things, and thousands more,
could be managed with a biochip the size of
a grain of rice. Biohackers call these endless,
biochip-less actions “friction”—moments that
divert our attention and hog space in our
brains that could be better used for, say, writ-
ing poetry or playing with the kids.
The possibility of biochipping—and not just
in science fiction books and films—has been
around for years. As far back as 2004, the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration approved an
implantable chip for Applied Digital Solu-
tions in Delray Beach, Fla., which aimed to
have people store their medical records on a
chip in their upper arm. The device could be
lifesaving: If you were rushed unconscious
to a hospital with no identification, doctors
would instantly be able to scan your blood
type, medical history, and organ-donor status.
Yet three years after the FDA approval, the
company said in a securities filing that it had
failed to find a market for its chips, and that
it “may never achieve market acceptance or
more than nominal or modest sales.” The
company explained the failure by saying that
physicians were skittish about discussing
the device with their patients, who remained
suspicious about invasion of privacy.
Biohackers say the criticism is uninformed.
[email protected]BIOHACKINGWHAT IT
IS AND
HOW IT
WORKSSimilar to a
chip in a credit
card, a biochip
has a tiny
antenna and
transmitter
and works with
near-field-
communication
(NFC) read-
ers to unlock
doors, buy train
tickets, monitor
gym workouts,
and more.WHERE
IT GOESBiochips are
implanted under
the skin. Biohax,
for example,
injects them
into the fleshy
part of the hand
between the
thumb and index
finger. The chips
are inert and
transmit only
when close to
a reader.WHAT
IT CAN
REPLACEAnything that
a plastic card
does now: keys,
ATM cards, gym-
locker cards,
bus tickets,
office identifica-
tion, and so on.