The Era Of Widespread Biometric Indentification And Microchip Implants Is HereMichael Snyder Proponents of these new technologies say that they will make our private information and our bank accounts much more secure. But there are others that warn that these kinds of Big Brother technologies will set the stage for even more government intrusion into our lives. In the wrong hands, such technologies could prove to be an absolute nightmare. Barclays has just announced that it is going to become the first major bank in the Western world to use vein scanning technology to control access to bank accounts. There will even be a biometric readerthat customers plug into their computers at home The bank has teamed up with Japanese technology firm Hitachi to develop a biometric reader that scans a customers finger to access accounts, instead of using a password or PIN. The biometric reader, which plugs into a customers computer at home, uses infrared lights to scan blood flow in a persons finger. The user must then scan the same finger a second time to confirm a transaction. Each vein profile will be stored on a SIM card inside the device. Vein recognition technology is used by some banks in Japan and elsewhere at ATM machines, but Barclays said it is the first bank globally to use it for significant account transactions. But Barclays is not the only one that is making a big move into biometric identification. Online retailing behemoth Alibaba is going to start usingfingerprint scanning in an attempt to make their transactions more secure It is only a matter of time before more banks, online retailers and major websites start using this kind of technology. We live at a time when theft on the Internet threatens to spiral out of control, and big corporations are going to be continually looking for answers. Cell phone security is another area of great concern these days. If someone can get a hold of your phone and unlock it, that person can potentially do all sorts of damage. So Motorola has developed a digital tattoo that will be used to ensure that only the owner of a phone is able to unlock it. The following is how Motorola described these new digital tattoos And below I have posted the video that Motorola shared on YouTube about these tattoos Pretty bizarre stuff, eh? But others are taking cell phone security to even greater extremes. For example, some people were actually implanting themselves with microchips in anticipation of the release of the iPhone 6 on September 9th Of course this kind of thing is not new. People have been getting implanted with microchips for years. If you doubt this, just do an Internet search for biohackers and see what you find. But it is starting to become more mainstream, and there are already some thinkers that are quite eager to use such technology for very authoritarian purposes. For example, one prominent philosopher recently suggested that we should use implantable microchips to prevent anyone that isdeemed unworthy from becoming a parent You might be tempted to think that this is crazy talk. But the truth is that this kind of technology is already being developed. In aprevious article, I quoted a news article which discussed how billionaire Bill Gates is funding the development of a birth control microchip that acts as a contraceptive for 16 years The birth control microchip, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, would hold nearly two decades worth of a hormone commonly used in contraceptives and dispense 30 micrograms a day, according to a report from the MIT Technology Review. The new birth control, which is set to begin preclinical testing next year with hopes of putting it on shelves in 2018, can be implanted in the buttocks, upper arm or abdomen. Yes, I know that a lot of the things that I have talked about in this article sound really weird. But the reality of the matter is that technology is changing at an exponential rate, and our world is going to get crazier and crazier as time goes by. Are you ready for what comes next? This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here. 