Getting chipped: Why one privacy-obsessed editor is testing an NFC chip implant

There are days when even your wife thinks you’re crazy. In my case one those days was when I told her I decided to implant a near-field communication chip in my hand.

“You of all people? And that thing will stay in your arm for a year?” she asked incredulously. She had a point, of course, because I’m the one who always says that any possible breach of my own — and my reader’s — privacy should be contested with all possible measures.

While that may be the case, I’ve been living with an NFC chip in my left hand since Sept. 25. It was implanted between my thumb and index finger, and I can tell you that it hurt quite a bit. But that was mainly because of all the TV camera people trying to film it, which dragged the process out from the normal five seconds to about 30 seconds.

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