Some technology seems outlandishly intrusive when it first emerges. Cameras above street corners, along highways and in rail stations come to mind, but even this big-brother technique has become routine and hard to argue against as a common-sense safety measure.

No it’s time for everyone to get chip implants. Well, nearly time.

Early adopters will pave the way amid concerns by privacy advocates, but soon they’ll be must-haves for the rich and their kids. The technology will save a few lives and then chip implants will be as routine as phones attached to the waist and little plastic cards that offer direct access to your bank account from anywhere in the world.

The tiny chips, about the size of a rice grain, can carry the sort of information that would be vital to ER docs trying to save your life after a car crash or in any situation where you couldn’t talk and time was of the essence. They can be implanted inconspicuously under your right arm, as will be done with 280 patients in a test of the technology by a New Jersey insurer. Medical errors kill thousands of Americans every year, according to the FDA.
Everybody raise your right hand and repeat after me: Chip implants are a good idea.

Some states and perhaps even the Feds might try to ban mandatory chip implants. You’ll have a choice. And hopefully you will be able to decide for your children.

Here’s why I bring this all up:

There are other potential uses for chip implants. Pets get them in lieu of tags around the neck. Eventually, they could be used to keep track of Alzheimer’s patients who might wander off. (The Chairman of the Board of VeriChip, the leader in this field, proposed recently putting the things in migrant workers.)

Or children who have been abducted.

The other day, at my son’s day care, a quarter mile from the Interstate, some still-unknown man tried to snatch a young girl who was going to the bathroom via an outside walkway with two other girls in an ill-conceived “buddy system.” She managed to wriggle away and lock the bathroom door and stay safe. School policy has been changed, but that guy is still out there. And you can guess where I stand now on chip implants.