Record health data, identity card, share your LinkedIn profile or even pay for groceries. All through microchips implanted under the skin. Mattia Coffetti, 35 years old from Rodengo Saiano, a small town in the Brescia area, is the first Italian to have five microchips installed under the skin by exploiting the potential of technology directly on his body.
A passion for information technology that Mattia has cultivated since he was a child: “At the age of 13 – he says – I used to install free operating systems on friends’ PCs”. Now “I deal with computer science at 360 degrees – he adds – I’ve tried to make my passion a job”.
Browsing the internet, he became passionate about topics such as biohacking and approached Transhumanism, the cultural movement that supports the use of technological discoveries to increase physical and cognitive abilities: “I saw – he explains – that there were already groups of people who began to create microchips that could be inserted under the skin with different characteristics and functions”.
Today they can be purchased directly on the web at low prices, ranging from 80 to 200 euros, and are implanted in special authorized centers that collaborate with the companies that sell them.
“Seized by the desire to become a pioneer – continues Mattia – I decided to try them and buy five chips”. Two are more like “toys”, namely a magnet – useful for example not to lose the screws when working – and a LED that lights up when brought near an electrical source.
With a third chip Mattia is able to open doors or shutters but can also record, for quick sharing, one’s personal, work or health data. To get them, in fact, just bring a phone.
Another device installed in his body can be used to authenticate bank details while with the latest microchip the 35-year-old is able to make payments as if he had a credit card under his skin. Through an app, in fact, it is topped up as if it were a prepaid card. Then, once at the cash desk, he just needs to bring the chip close to any reader to carry out the transaction: “A first step to leaving the house without cash or credit cards”.
But also a first concrete example of the use of devices in one’s body, in the wake of what Elon Musk’s start-up Neuralink is already planning. Not everyone, however, is convinced of this technological evolution. “Many are afraid of tracking – he says – but to read them you have to bring a phone close. And in any case these microchips are not created by who knows what mysterious company. Online it is possible to find out about the technical characteristics before buying them”.
In short “we must not always be afraid of things we do not know – concludes Mattia – we also try to embrace them and hope for a better future also through the use of technology combined with the body”.