Burgundy Waller has attracted 4.8 million followers on TikTok. She is a woman known primarily as “CHIP GIRLTM,” she has gone viral after posting a video of herself making a grocery store purchase with the help of the security chip she had implanted in her hand.
Unilad said she got the implant (a radio frequency identification chip) in the crease between her thumb and index finger.
The rumor goes that “Chip Girl” had the chip implanted so she wouldn’t have to use keys to unlock her front door. According to reports, after installing a recent firmware update, the lady could finally use her hand to pay for her weekly groceries.
Waller said in a video she tweeted that she was at Whole Foods and would pay for her purchases by waving her hand in front of a chip reader.
After a beep verified her purchase, she said, “That is the coolest thing ever.”
CNET reported in 2015 that RFID chips used in security systems were already commonplace in nations like Sweden. In Sweden’s high-tech office complex Epicenter, chip implants have replaced key cards as the primary access method.
Over 4,000 Swedes, according to a 2018 NPR article, have been chipped by a firm founded by a body piercer.
Inventor Jowan Osterlund noted that using different cards verifying your identity in various systems makes no sense. He said using a chip allows you to simplify in an always-on, always-connected environment.
It’s simple until you get multiple chips.
Miana Windall, a software developer, has around twenty-five implants beneath her skin, ranging from magnets to RFID technology. Windall discussed her fascination with the implants during a DEF CON security conference.
Subway cards and other forms of tap-to-pay payment are powered by RFID technology. Body alteration has been used for millennia, and the basic technology was first patented in the 1970s. Even still, RFID implants haven’t developed to their full potential, and many people still see them as a novelty, as Windall pointed out.
The practical applications of RFID implants are somewhat restricted since the technology is fundamental and requires the user to be capable of programming it. Transponders are like selling a key to a door without including the lock. It takes considerable technological know-how on the user’s part to construct “the lock.”
