New Digital Angel is Big Brother under your thumb

Here's a high-tech tracking device not even George Orwell envisioned: a gizmo slightly smaller than a dime inserted under a person's skin.

Palm Beach-based Applied Digital Solutions said that it has acquired the patent for the implant, which it calls the Digital Angel. People who use the transmitter -- powered by the carrier's muscle -- could be tracked by global positioning satellite, the same technology used in some luxury cars and boats.

Richard Sullivan, chairman and chief executive of Applied Digital, sees a multibillion-dollar market for the implant.

Parents who fear losing children to kidnappers might buy the devices. People with Alzheimer's or heart disease might use the transmitters so that medical help could arrive quickly.

The chip would hold medical and financial information. There's no need to worry about Orwell's Big Brother, Sullivan said, because no one will be forced to have an implant.

"We don't see that as an issue because it's a voluntary thing," Sullivan said. "We're in a voluntary world."

In some cases, he said, the implant could be a "life-saving" device.

But Sullivan also said the criminal justice system might use the implants to keep track of prisoners released early.

Civil libertarians cringe at such uses of technology, which they consider invasive.

"This is a situation that can go in the blink of an eye from being voluntary to being mandatory," said Emily Whitfield, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Evan Hendricks, editor of the Privacy Times newsletter, said consumers should think hard before buying an implant.

"They could get some bar code tattoos while they're at it," Hendricks said sarcastically. "If a parent really wants to put a chip in their kids, they have the right to do that. I would encourage people to think long and hard about using something like this for privacy and for medical reasons."

Applied Digital is developing the device and hopes to have a version available late next year. Sullivan wouldn't say how much Applied Digital paid for the patent, only that he bought it from a Boston-area group of inventors.

The implant would consist of a chip surrounded by Teflon or titanium. Sullivan described the implant as the size of a thumbnail, or about the circumference of a dime, though slightly thinner.

Applied Digital specializes in business-to-business e-commerce, and Sullivan said the company plans to use the device for Internet security first. The implant could let someone at a computer verify the identity of another thousands of miles away.

Sullivan said the e-commerce market for the chip could be worth $10 billion to $12 billion. When parents, patients and other customers are added to the list of potential buyers, sales could reach $100 billion, he said.

People unwilling to have the chips in their bodies could carry them. The chips also could be placed on such items as valuable paintings.

It's unclear how much the chips would sell for.

Sullivan said he was overwhelmed with phone calls after he put out a news release about the implant Wednesday.

"It has a very exciting future," he said.

But privacy expert Hendricks doubts that consumers will clamor for a device they've never needed before.

"It's a solution looking for a problem," he said.