Diabetics have got RFID under their skin

While the privacy debate around RFID chips still rages, 18 diabetics in the US have voluntarily signed up to have the tags put under their skin.

The 18 were implanted with the chips by RFID company VeriChip at the Atlanta Diabetes Expo.

The diabetics will now be added to the database for VeriChip's patient identification system. Should chipped patients turn up at hospital unconscious or unable to communicate, the RFID tags they carry inside their bodies can be scanned using an RFID reader and their details called up from a database.

According to VeriChip, 500 US hospitals have now signed up for the system - a figure the company hopes to increase to 800 by the end of the year.

The RFID company says it has been giving away readers in an effort to "seed" the technology within the health sector.

The controversial use of RFID chips in humans was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2004 in the US. The European Commission has also theoretically approved such a use, although on the proviso it must be done for those in medical need. It has also backed the idea of using RFID to track individual citizens, although only where it has been legislated for first.