COVID Cyborgs

'The COVID Cyborg and Protecting the Unaugmented Human' by Kate Galloway in (2020) Alternative Law Journal comments

This article examines the increasing tendency towards governance of people through their representation via data. In its most contemporary iteration, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised the prospect of contact tracing apps. While public discourse about the apps has focused principally on the important issue of data privacy, there are other possible effects whereby participation in such schemes might become a pre- requisite to accessing services or basic rights—either from government or from corporations. The pathway to acceptability of applying our data in this way is already paved, through fitness monitors and other technologies by which we represent ourselves. This article sets out the foundation of such technologies and their application, before outlining their effect on the recognised boundaries of governance and the conception of the holder of rights and the substance of those rights. 

Galloway argues

In 2018, biohacker Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow was found guilty of travelling on Sydney buses without a valid ticket. Rather than carrying Sydney transport’s Opal Card with him, he had instead implanted its chip into his hand. He had indeed tapped on when entering the bus—so had paid for his trip. However, Sydney transport authorities were not satisfied with this, alleging that he had breached the card’s terms of use. 

Meow-Meow claimed that his case was based on the principle of ‘cyborg rights’. The modification of his body through embedding technology-capable hardware is a feature of a posthuman evolution, a ‘leaky distinction between animal-human and machine’. As an activist pushing the boundaries of the definition of human, Meow-Meow was simultaneously pushing the boundaries of the rights held by an altered human before the law. 

The science fiction-like nature of body modification is occurring in more prosaic ways. A pacemaker, for example, might transmit data about its human operating system in the same way that Meow-Meow’s Opal card chip transmitted data concerning payment of a bus fare. Whether therapeutic interventions properly constitute a ‘cyborg’ remains an open question, however to the extent that they might, the pacemaker example certainly poses less of a challenge to our general conceptions of humanity than does a more extreme bodily modification, possibly undertaken by oneself. 

Machines and other hardware (and software) may be implanted within us, but more readily we are enhancing our physical capabilities by carrying them on our person. Smartphones are ubiquitous, and as they extend our intellectual capacity, ability to communicate, and even provide biophysical feedback for lifegiving treatments, and share myriad personal data with government and corporations alike. Fitness trackers worn on the wrist measure our physiological signs not only re-presenting them to their wearer as a variety of metrics by way of graphs and icons, but also sharing with other users and their corporate creators. Our devices also call for biometric data to unlock their features. We readily submit to fingerprints and facial recognition, granting global corporates the most intimate of insights into ourselves. 

At the same time as we have willingly released aspects of ourselves, through our data, in the private sphere our government has constructed a surveillance architecture affording security services wide scope for access to our telecommunications data and our biometric data. Although governments have pushed through the suite of legislation for over a decade, this has not come without a cost. The uptake of My Health Record, a putative personal database of one’s medical information, has been poor. And now, in the thrall of a pandemic, government is proposing a contact tracing app whereby a user’s proximity to another person (within 1.5m for more than 15 minutes) would be identified through Bluetooth technology, encrypted, and recorded in the app. If a contact is diagnosed with COVID-19, then all contacts would be notified of that. 

Critique of the app—at the time of writing not yet released—has generally been concerned with data privacy per se. This is, of course, important. However, independently of data privacy is a question the opposite to that encountered by Meow-Meow. For the foreseeable future, and in particular while we are in a declared public health emergency, our infection status regarding COVID-19 is central to our freedom, and indeed, to wider societal freedom. In that sense, a tracing app —a nd its data — effectively function as an extension of ourselves. They are a means of reassurance not only to public health officials running the program, but to wider society, that we, collectively, are safe. Meow-Meow exercised his freedom to extend the functioning of his body by inserting the Opal card chip. But will we be free from extending our corporeal body through the incorporeal data contained in a contact tracing app? Without making the app mandatory, there are multiple ways that it might entrench itself within society to create classes of people. Those whose provenance is known (via the app) and those whose provenance is not. 

This article suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic will test the boundaries of our personhood in a new way. Despite the existing state/corporate data infrastructure whereby others are able to construct a picture of our most intimate lives, there is not yet a universally compelling basis for production of personal data as a threshold for acceptance into places or institutions. Contact tracing may present one. And if our data is to be carried with us as an integral and qualifying part of our interface with the world around us, it may be considered as part of our person. To the extent that our data engagement differentiates us from other humans, the question arises of the protections available at law. In particular, with an ‘extended’ human, the question arises about where recognised boundaries of governance lie, whether the extended human is the bearer of rights, and if so, what is the substance of those rights. 

Part II outlines the basis on which our data is effectively an extension of ourselves, and as such constitutes the extended human as a species of ‘cyborg’ following Haraway’s interpretation. Part III then hypothesises about a variety of social contexts that might prefer or demand, what I call here a ‘COVID cyborg’—a person enhanced by their COVID tracing data—to the exclusion of those not so enhanced. It envisages our society comprising two classes of people: the COVID cyborg, and the unaugmented human. Unlike the experience of Meow-Meow, the COVID cyborg has the potential to be embraced, effectively affording them rights superior to those of the unaugmented human. If this is to be the case, the law needs to comprehend both cyborg and unaugmented status as equal subjects of protection.

Chipper

No great surprises in the report that Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow has been unsuccessful after brouhaha over his bodyhacking of a Transport for NSW (TfNSW) travel card.

Mr Meow-Meow was noted here, here and in a piece for The Conversation.

TfNSW had taken action against him for not using a valid  ticket (using public transport without a valid ticket and for not producing a ticket to transport officers).

Despite hyperbole about 'cyborg rights' (does everyone with a stent, a pacemaker or joint implant count as a cyborg?),  he today pleaded guilty to both offences at Newtown Local Court.

The ABC reports that  Mr Meow-Meow

was fined $220 for breaching the Opal Card terms of use and was ordered to pay $1,000 in legal costs. 

The lawyer representing Mr Meow Meow argued that transport legislation had advanced to include methods of contactless payment through MasterCard and some smart phones. He said that the law should adapt to all available technologies including implantable tech. 

But Magistrate Michael Quinn said, while the legislation may catch up with technology in the future, the law of the day must be followed. 

Outside court, Mr Meow Meow said he was disappointed both offences were not dismissed and that he was ordered to pay legal costs. 

Despite the decision, Mr Meow Meow said he would continue to experiment with implanted technology. He said he was planning to push the boundary even further, replacing his Opal chip with one that will hold all of his personal information, including credit cards and memberships. 

DIY unauthorised modification of credit card and membership cards will breach the terms and conditions of his account with the credit card providers, so he can expect to see those businesses restricting or cancelling the relevant accounts.

Biohacking and travel cards

Given that Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow - noted last year - is in the news again it was timely to read 'DIY Bio: Hacking Life in Biotech’s Backyard' by Lisa C. Ikemoto in (2017) 51 University of California Davis Law Review 539.

The peripatic Meow-Meow - recurrent political candidate, cyborg advocate and biohacking enthusiast - has unsurprisingly had his OPAL near-field transit card cancelled after he extracted the chip for subcutaneous insertion. He appears to consider that the resulting litigation - contesting a $200 fine in 2017 for riding the train without a valid ticket and reportedly planning to launch legal action against TfNSW for unlawfully cancelling his cards - will advance cyborg rights.

Australian law does not recognise 'cyborgs' as such and his action would appear to be readily addressed under the terms and conditions for use of his card.

In the Australian Capital Territory there is a prohibition under Regulation 49 of the Road Transport (Public Passenger Services) Regulation 2002 (ACT) of traveling on an ACT government bus using a ticket that has been 'damaged or defaced in a material respect' or 'changed in a material particular', with ticket including a card with a chip or magnetic strip.

In NSW use of the OPAL travel card is governed by the Passenger Transport (General) Regulation 2017 (NSW). The Cards 'are and remain' the property of TransportNSW, which may 'inspect, de-activate or take possession of an Opal Card or require its return at our discretion without notice at any time'.

Users are required to 'take proper care of the Opal Card, avoid damaging it, keep it flat and not bend or pierce it' and - saliently - 'not misuse, deface, alter, tamper with or deliberately damage or destroy the Opal Card'. Further, the user must not 'alter, remove or replace any notices (other than the activation sticker), trademarks or artwork on the Opal Card. Additionally, they must not'modify, adapt, translate, disassemble, decompile, reverse engineer, create derivative works of, copy or read, obtain or attempt to discover by any means, any (i) encrypted software or encrypted data contained on an Opal Card; or (ii) other software or data forming part of the Opal Ticketing System'.

Meow-Meow gained attention several years ago regarding 'biohacking' (centred on a DIY community DNA-modification lab) rather than 'bodyhacking'.

Ikemoto comments

DIY biologists set up home labs in garages, spare bedrooms, or use community lab spaces. They play with plasmids, yeast, and tools like CRISPR-cas9. Media stories feature glow-in-the-dark plants, beer, and even puppies. DIY bio describes itself as a loosely formed community of individualists, working separate and apart from institutional science. This Essay challenges that claim, arguing that institutional science has fostered DIY bio and that DIY bio has, thus far, tacitly conformed to institutional science values and norms. Lack of a robust ethos leaves DIY bio ripe for capture by biotech. Yet, this Essay suggests, DIY bio could serve as a laboratory for reformulating a relationship between science and society that is less about capital accumulation and more about knowledge creation premised on participation and justice.

 She goes on

Popular media depicts biohackers or Do-It-Yourself (“DIY”) biologists as the ultimate science geeks. “DIY bio” refers to noninstitutional science or science performed outside of professional laboratories.  DIY biologists set up home labs in garages, spare bedrooms, and closets or use community lab spaces. The people doing DIY bio range from the self-taught to PhDs. Instead of building computers or creating apps, DIYers play with plasmids, jellyfish, yeast, and polymerase chain reaction in genetic engineering experiments. Media stories and DIY bio websites often feature glow-in-the-dark plants, food, petri dish art, and even puppies.

DIY bio is an emerging set of activities. A range of players, with varied ideologies, are shaping DIY bio’s trajectories. DIY bio’s signature claim is that it exists apart from, and even in opposition to, institutional science. This Essay challenges that claim. Whether all DIY biologists know this or not, DIY bio serves the interests of institutional science and is well-situated for capture by biotechnology. Biotechnology refers not only to the life sciences-based industry, but also to the neoliberal epistemology that values the use of applied science to commercialize the transformation of life itself into technology. DIY bio’s origin stories do reflect resistance to the highly structured and bureaucratic nature of institutional science. Yet these accounts also indicate interest convergence between DIY bio and institutional science. Accounts that forecast DIY bio’s future show DIY bio conforming its practices to mainstream law, policy, and market concerns. Thus far, DIY bio has not crafted its own account of the relationship between science, society, and ethics, and is falling into a science-as-usual practice that situates DIY bio in biotech’s backyard.

Part II sets out a descriptive account of biohacking, and DIY bio, in particular. Part III identifies three overlapping explanations for DIY bio. The first two, explicitly political accounts and nostalgic accounts, are largely consistent with the DIY bio claim that DIY bio is different and apart from institutional science. The third account borrows from Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis and asserts that DIY bio sustains an ideology of bio-individualism embedded in biotechnology. Part IV reviews and critiques law and policy views of DIY bio and its prospects. These views apply the frames and standards applicable to biotech. Part V makes the case for biotech’s annexation of DIY bio. Part V elaborates on DIY bio’s failure, so far, to re-define the relationship between science and society, and suggests a few initial critical points of engagement for doing so.

She suggests that

As yet, DIY bio has not expressed a commitment to ethical science activity, nor developed a robust ethos. Perhaps, its tacit acceptance of the risk-benefit framework means that its view of ethics aligns with that of institutional science. That is, it conflates a risk-benefit weighing with ethical standards or views ethics as a compliance obligation.

The risk calculus is not devoid of ethical concerns. It maps onto a standard ethical test used in institutional science. The test highlights three criteria — safety, efficacy, and autonomy. That test derives from the Belmont Report’s principlist framework, the FDA’s drug and device approval standards, and neoliberalism’s effects on the life sciences and autonomy. The Belmont Report states four principles — autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and distributive justice. Autonomy’s application is informed consent. The non-maleficence principle is addressed by weighing risk to human health against benefits. Benefits refer to efficacy or improvements to human health. The FDA uses safety and efficacy as its criteria in the drug and device testing requirements for market approval. Efficacy, like safety or risk to human health, is narrowly defined. The FDA requires that the product work, but does not require that it work well or better than existing therapeutics. Market thinking has infiltrated these criteria. Claims that individual choice should trump agency standards in determining access to drugs have gained credence. This indicates that traditional bioethics’ first principle, autonomy, may now be understood as a form of free market individualism. In addition, the pharmaceutical industry has leveraged that version of autonomy to maximize the role of drugs in medical care, and the sale of particular products. While big bio’s risk calculus is not the end-all and be-all of ethics in institutional science, it is part of an impoverished ethical framework.

In 2011, the North American and European DIYbio Congresses issued Draft Codes of Ethics. The codes incorporate principles of open science — open access, transparency, and education; and selfregulation — safety (adopt safe practices), environment (respect the environment), and peaceful purposes (biotechnology should only be used for peaceful purposes). As discussed, the North American Code has one more element — Tinkering. The Code elements are general. As my characterization suggests, the Code elements, like the Belmont Report principles, lend themselves to narrow or broad readings. Read more generously, safety, environment, and peaceful purposes might move DIY bio beyond the issue of forestalling regulation to situating science as a tool for social justice. On the other hand, open access could be read as a right to access, premised on free market individualism. Tinkering invokes the individual, as the nostalgic accounts show. If DIY bio is first and foremost an individualist vision of science, it stands little chance of evolving into a new understanding of science.

The open science principles suggest that DIY bio’s ethos differs from big bio’s, and that DIY bio is not bound by big bio’s norms. Yet, open science goals do not translate to an ethics of science. Open science can be used for different goals, including forms of commercial distribution that are exploitative. In addition, the Code states the elements as universal principles, which in itself is problematic. Typically, dominant readings of so-called universal principles are used to maintain boundaries, and identify the out-group as non-compliant. It is very possible that the universal principles may be used to undercut the inclusive goals that open science asserts.

My comments in the previous subparts suggest, without prescriptive detail, the possibility of using DIY bio to redefine the possible relationship between science and society. Contemporary accounts indicate that DIY bio projects are typically small-scale and are relatively unsophisticated. As such, DIY bio seems underpowered as a platform for re-thinking the political economy of the life sciences. What I suggest here is not that DIY biologists directly challenge or redesign institutional science. Rather, DIY bio might provide an opportunity to create, by deliberate experimentation, a set of practices that are ethos-based and originate from critical social inquiry. The most valorized explanatory accounts speak, in bits and pieces, of social justice goals. Using these as a starting point, DIY bio might craft ways of doing science that embed justice-based ethics into inquiry and practice. Ethics, then, could become not a compliance checklist, but constitutive of good science.

Ikemoto concludes

 DIY bio is many things to many people. That is, undoubtedly, part of its appeal. What is it not, however, is separate and apart from institutional science. Its location in biotech’s backyard, without a fence or substantive alternative vision of DIY bio’s role, makes it vulnerable to annexation. In that scenario, DIY bio and its dream of a new science by the people might disappear. This Essay maps the relationships between DIY bio and institutional science. The mapping also critiques aspects of biotechnology that are inconsistent with DIY bio’s stated goals of access and participatory knowledge formation. If DIY bio takes those goals seriously, this Essay suggests that it move beyond compliance-based thinking, and beyond experimentation using plasmids and pipettes. Acknowledging that science is a social practice, followed by scientific-social inquiry about how and why we engage with plasmids and pipettes, and willingness to experiment with new social methods of doing science, might move DIY bio out of biotech’s backyard, and into society.

Biopunks

'“Let’s pull these technologies out of the ivory tower”: The politics, ethos, and ironies of participant-driven genomic research' by Michelle L. McGowan, Suparna Choudhury, Eric T. Juengst, Marcie Lambrix, Richard A. Settersten Jr and Jennifer R. Fishman in (2017) 1 BioSocieties 1 comments

This paper investigates how groups of ‘citizen scientists’ in non-traditional settings and primarily online networks claim to be challenging conventional genomic research processes and norms. Although these groups are highly diverse, they all distinguish their efforts from traditional university- or industry-based genomic research as being ‘participant-driven’ in one way or another. Participant-driven genomic research (PDGR) groups often work from ‘labs’ that consist of servers and computing devices as much as wet lab apparatus, relying on information-processing software for data-driven, discovery-based analysis rather than hypothesis-driven experimentation. We interviewed individuals from a variety of efforts across the expanding ecosystem of PDGR, including academic groups, start-ups, activists, hobbyists, and hackers, in order to compare and contrast how they relate their stated objectives, practices, and political and moral stances to institutions of expert scientific knowledge production. Results reveal that these groups, despite their diversity, share commitments to promoting alternative modes of housing, conducting, and funding genomic research and, ultimately, sharing knowledge. In doing so, PDGR discourses challenge existing approaches to research governance as well, especially the regulation, ethics, and oversight of human genomic information management. Interestingly, the reaction of the traditional genomics research community to this revolutionary challenge has not been negative: in fact, the community seems to be embracing the ethos espoused by PDGR, at the highest levels of science policy. As conventional genomic research assimilates the ethos of PDGR, the movement’s ‘democratizing’ views on research governance are likely to become normalized as well, creating new tensions for science policy and research ethics.

'Steve Jobs, Terrorists, Gentlemen and Punks: Tracing Strange Comparisons of Biohackers' by Morgan Meyer in Joe Deville, Michael Guggenheim and Zuzana Hrdlicková (eds) Practising Comparisons: Logics, Relations, Collaborations (Mattering Press, 2016) comments

In this paper, I want to reflect and shed new light on one of my current research topics: biohacking. While I have been researching biohacking for a few years now, to date I have not yet examined its comparative dimension. The themes I have investigated thus far revolve around the materiality, boundaries, and ethics of biohacking. However, so far I have not problematised or made visible the issue of comparison, despite the fact that comparisons abound in discussions about biohackers. This article is thus an opportunity to use a comparative optics to ‘make new discoveries’ (Yengoyan 2006) on a subject that I felt I already knew well. 

Biohackers are people who hack and tinker with biology. On the one hand, the phenomenon of biohacking can be easily localised (both temporally and spatially). The movement emerged in 2007/2008 and has largely developed in large US and European cities. On the other hand, in order to understand and analyse the phenomenon, comparisons with a wide and heterogeneous set of figures are made by science journalists and practitioners alike. For example, biohackers are concurrently compared to the following: seventeenth-century gentlemen amateurs; terrorists (whom Western powers usually locate in the East); the punk movement that emerged in the 1970s and their do-it-yourself ethics; and Steve Jobs and the Homebrew Computer Club. 

The term biohacking is used today to designate a wide array of practices including the hacking of expensive scientific equipment by building cheaper alternatives; producing biosensors to detect pollutants in food and in the environment; and genetically re-engineering yoghurt to alter its taste, make it fluorescent, or produce vitamin C. Biohacking mobilises and transforms both molecular biology techniques and the ethics of hacking/open source. As such, it can be seen as a recent phenomenon. Its emergence as a distinct and visible movement can be traced back to the past eight or nine years. In 2008, for instance, DIYbio (the first association dedicated to do-it-yourself biology) was created. Two years later, the Biopunk Manifesto (2010) was written by Meredith Patterson, one of the leading figures in the biohacking movement. In addition, at the time of writing this paper, there are a number of associations, laboratories, wikis, websites, and so on, dedicated to biohacking. 

The rise of the biohacker movement has caught the attention of journalists and academics alike. Academics have followed and analysed the movement since around 2008 (see Schmidt 2008a; Bennet et al. 2009; Ledford 2010), and two books dedicated to the subject have recently been published: Biohackers: The Politics of Open Science (2013), by science and technology studies (STS) scholar Alessandro Delfanti, and Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the So ware of Life (2011), by science journalist Marcus Wohlsen. In one way or another, this body of work has examined the ethics, risks, potentials, and openness of the movement. 

The geographical spread of biohacking – like its temporal emergence – can also be delineated. According to the main website in the field (DIYbio.org), there are currently eighty-five DIY biology laboratories in the world, of which twenty-eight are located in Europe, and thirty-five are in the US on either the east or west coast. There are now biohacker labs and biohackers in cities like New York, Boston, Paris, San Francisco, Manchester, Vienna, and in recent years, initiatives have developed in places like Japan, Indonesia, and Singapore. The political geography of biohacking (and consequently, the arguments developed in this paper) thus needs to be emphasised. The biohacker movement is developing in Western and Westernised countries; laboratories are usually located in urban or suburban settings; and English is the lingua franca for the majority of the websites, articles, mailing lists, discussions, and wikis devoted to biohacking. 

This paper focuses on how, and to what, biohackers are compared. This is a challenging question, for as we will see below, biohackers are compared to rather unlikely bedfellows. Not only are plentiful comparisons being made, but they are also drawn between different cultures and times, and between different – sometimes opposing – values and ethics. Unlike the ‘comparator’ which needs to be actively assembled, fed, and calibrated in order to provide comparisons (Deville, Guggenheim, and Hrdličková 2013), in the case of biohackers, comparisons are ‘already there’ and they are omnipresent. The frequency and disparity of these comparisons are what caught my interest in comparison and what compelled me to write this chapter. Why are such comparisons mobilised and why are such unlikely gures put side by side? What kinds of effects do such comparisons afford? How should we analyse these comparisons?

It is not unusual for hackers and computer programmers to be compared. Computer hackers, for instance, have been compared to public watchdogs, whistle-blowers, elite corps of computer programmers, artists, vandals, and criminals (see Jordan and Taylor 1998), while recent hacker networks like the Anonymous group have been compared to industrial machine breakers, and to Luddites (Deseriis 2013). The Homebrew Computer Club (initially a group of ‘hobbyists’) eventually became a group of ‘business entrepreneurs’ (see Coleman 2012), and Steve Jobs is today being compared to people like Thomas Edison or Walt Disney. 

Using biohacking as a case study, I will reflect upon and problematise comparison. The list of potential benefits of comparison is long, and it is worth mentioning a few, such as how they help to explore new, unanticipated routes; move beyond national frameworks by varying scales of analysis; and identify social patterns while highlighting the singularity of the cases studied (de Verdalle et al. 2012). The practices, methods, and problems of comparison have been discussed in a number of academic texts over the past decade or so. For instance, Richard Fox and Andre Gingrich (2002) have made an important contribution by revisiting and (re)theorising comparison. Arguing that comparison is a basic human activity that deserves academic scrutiny, they lay out a specific programme for comparative approaches. Differentiating between weak or implicit comparison, and strong and explicit comparison, Fox and Gingrich push especially for the latter and highlight their plural nature (2002: 20). The explicit focus on comparison has now become increasingly common, so that people talk of a ‘comparative turn’ in the social sciences (see Ward 2010). In this sense, comparison is actively engaged with, problematised, and theorised. This interest is visible beyond the Anglo-Saxon world as well. In France, for instance, two collections of essays on comparison have been published in 2012 alone: one is in the journal Terrains et Travaux (featuring on its cover an orange and an apple – a classic image that at once depicts sameness and difference, and is one of the chief challenges of comparison). The other is in an edited book called Faire des Sciences Sociales: Comparer (Remaud, Schaub, and ireau 2012). 

In this article, I want to draw on this body of work in several ways. First, I am interested in several authors’ emphases on ‘thick’ and multidimensional comparisons. Ana Barro, Shirley Jordan, and Celia Roberts (1998) have argued that comparison should be explorative, thick, and multidimensional. Jörg Niewöhner and Thomas Scheffer – who also argue for a ‘thick’ comparison – further emphasise that comparisons are performative in that ‘they connect what would otherwise remain unconnected, specify what would otherwise remain unspecified, and emphasise what would otherwise remain unrecognised’ (2008: 281). In a related way, Joe Deville, Michael Guggenheim, and Zuzana Hrdličková (this volume) talk about approaches that actively ‘provoke’ comparisons, while Tim Choy (2011) examines what comparisons do. 

Second, I do not want to ‘solve’ the issue of comparison, nor tell a coherent account of what biohackers are and what they are not. I am, rather, exploring the problems that biohackers and their identities entail. In this sense, I follow Adam Kuper (2002) who reminds us that we have to ‘begin with a problem, a question, an intuition’ (2002: 161). He further writes:

I remain convinced that methodological difficulties are the least of our problems [...] We lack questions rather than the means to answer them. What we need in order to revive the comparative enterprise is not new methods but new ideas, or perhaps simply fresh problems (Ibid. 162).

I hold that biohackers are possibly such a ‘fresh problem’ since their identity is somewhat ambiguous and unclear, and since the probable risks and innovative potential of their activities are currently being debated. Discussions about biohacking reveal that there are many uncertainties and that it seems diffcult to put their identity into neat categories. The questions that seem to drive most biohacking comparisons – Who are they? How can we make sense of them? Are they to be feared or hailed? – seem to have no clear answer. 

Third, I also draw on Donna Haraway’s and Marilyn Strathern’s ideas around ‘partial connections’ and positionality. In her discussion about situated knowledge, Haraway writes:

[h]ere is the promise of objectivity: a scientific knower seeks the subject position, not of identity, but of objectivity, that is, partial connection. There is no way to ‘be’ simultaneously in all, or wholly in any, of the privileged (i.e. subjugated) positions (1988: 586).

She continues:

I am arguing for politics and epistemologies of location, positioning, and situating, where partiality and not universality is the condition of being heard to make rational knowledge claims [...] Feminism loves another science: the sciences and politics of interpretation, translation, stu ering, and the partly understood (Ibid. 589).

In her book Partial Connections (1991), Strathern further draws on Haraway’s work and uses the term ‘partial’ to say that ‘for not only is there no totality, each part also de nes a partisan position’ (1991: 39). The trope of ‘partial connections’ can be – and already has been – engaged with in work on comparisons. 

For instance, Endre Dányi, Lucy Suchman and Laura Watts (cited in Witmore 2009) have compared seemingly incompatible field sites (a renewable energy industry, the Hungarian Parliament, and a research centre in Silicon Valley) and noted that there can be a ‘remarkable repetitiveness’ when these sites are connected through specific themes (such as newness, centres/peripheries, place, and landscape). Others have talked about ‘partial comparisons’ (Jensen et al. 2011) as a way to think about multiplicities while still recognising that ‘there exists no single, stable, underlying nature on which all actors have their perspectives’ (Ibid. 15). In this paper, I want to use these ideas in order to avoid one pitfall: the depiction of biohackers as a coherent whole that is able to be summated according to the different parts and comparisons reported in this article. In other words, the comparisons made can only be ‘partially connected’. I will thus refrain from taking an analytical view ‘from above’, one that is detached from what takes place ‘on the ground’. Instead, I will follow the actors themselves and consider their comparisons and knowledge claims to be valid and legitimate. In the remainder of this paper, I look in turn at four comparisons of biohackers (Steve Jobs, punks, amateurs, and terrorists). I will think with biohackers about comparison, rather than think about biohackers’ comparisons. In doing so, I not only seek to examine what comparisons do and produce, but I will also be reflexive and critical about my own previous research.

Cats Pyjamas

Slow news day? The ABC features an item on biopunk Mr Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow (formerly Stuart McKellar), under the heading 'Sydney man has Opal card implanted into hand to make catching public transport easier'.

The item states

If you have ever been caught fumbling for your Opal card at the ticket gate, a Sydney man may have found the solution. He had the chip from an Opal card inserted into his hand and is now tapping on using the technology that is implanted underneath his skin. 

Bio-hacker Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow, his legal name, had the Opal near-field communication (NFC) chip cut down and encased in bio-compatible plastic, measuring 1 millimetre by 6 millimetres. He then had the device implanted just beneath the skin on the side of his left hand. 

"It gives me an ability that not everyone else has, so if someone stole my wallet I could still get home," he said. He is able to use the Opal just like other users, including topping the card up on his smartphone. However, his hand needs to be about 1 centimetre from the reader, closer than traditional cards, and he sometimes needs to tap more than once, due to his device's smaller antenna.

"My goal is to have frictionless interaction with technology," he said.

Mr Meow-Meow had his device implanted by a piercing expert, in a procedure lasting approximately one hour.  He warned others not to do the same without expertise and research. "Most certainly don't try this at home unless you know what you're doing," he said. 

Mr Meow-Meow said there was a risk of bacterial infection whenever anything was implanted beneath the skin, so it was important to consult professionals. "Be aware of the risks involved and make a wise judgement based on that." 

He also said his actions were a breach of Opal's terms of service, which prohibit tampering. "It will be really interesting to see what happens when the first transit officer scans my arm," he said.

The  officer might be more impressed by Mr Meow-Meow's given and surnames, which gained some attention when he stood for parliament.

Last year Bloomberg reported

If your name is Meow Meow, there’s a decent chance you’re an unusual dude. This holds true for Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow, a polyamorous, trans-humanist bio-hacker in Sydney. In 2014, Meow Meow opened Australia’s first do-it-yourself bio-hacking lab, in which anyone could pay a membership fee to experiment with DNA and make whatever creatures they could imagine.

For people familiar with the VeriChip controversy there is more bite in 'Towards insertables: Devices inside the human body' by Kayla Heffernan, Frank Vetere and Shanton Chang in (2017) 22(3) First Monday or 'The security implications of VeriChip cloning' by John Halamka, Ari Juels, Adam Stubblefield and Jonathan Westhues in (2006) 13(6) Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 601-607.

Ethical Implications of Implantable Radiofrequency Identification (RFID) Tags in Humans' by Kenneth Foster and Jan Jaeger in (2008) 8(8) The American Journal of Bioethics comments on

two areas of present ethical concern that are distinctive to implanted RFID chips, and in partic- ular the VeriChip. 

Disclosure of Risks

A central ethical principle holds that individuals have a right to know about possible adverse effects of a treatment, in this case implantation of a chip. Should VeriChip have disclosed the results of the rodent studies before anti-chip activists raised this issue? A finding of carcinogenic effect of an im- plant in rodents is, at least, suggestive of the possibility of a similar effect in humans. Predictably, the issue has assumed major importance to VeriChip, which saw a large drop in its stock price following media reports of this issue. The company commissioned a consultant to write an article for its website that downplayed risks to humans. While regulatory agencies might not give much weight to indications of foreign-body induced tumorigenesis in rodents, there is clearly a diversity of opinion among experts. “I think the evidence from the animal studies is indeed alarming,” one prominent cancer researcher told one of the present authors “and one should refrain from chipping people unless the mechanisms and long-term effects are known.” (A. Lerchl, Jacobs University Bremen [Bremen, Germany], personal communication [e-mail] to K. R. Foster October 16, 2007). Should the possibility of cancer be added to the rather long list of potential adverse effects provided by the FDA, most of which are seemingly highly unlikely?

Truth in Advertising

VeriChip markets the VeriMed system for identification of patients who might present to emergency rooms incapable of communicating their identity to caregivers. Its promo- tional literature lists a wide variety of conditions, which, the company believes, would justify the cost of implantation of a chip and subscription to its medical database.

However, we know of no studies showing that being chipped gives a better outcome at the emergency room or otherwise improves public health in comparison with sim- pler and noninvasive technologies, such as medical alert bracelets, USB drives with personal health information, identification cards in wallets, fingerprint scanners, biometric identification, for example. An independent assessment of the risks and benefits of the use of implanted RFID tags in humans for medical identification purposes is badly needed, if only as a consumer protection measure to help consumers make informed decisions whether to buy into the system. For most individuals, we suspect, chipping would be a poor investment with slight prospects of resulting in a better outcome in a health crisis given other options available to the patient.

So far, only preliminary studies are underway which address this issue. A pilot project using this system was announced in June 2006 by VeriChip Corporation with Hackensack University Medical Center (Hackensack, NJ), a large provider of medical services in the state, and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Newark, NJ). A larger test, with 200 Alzheimer’s patients, was announced in February 2007 by VeriChip Corporation and Alzheimer’s Community Care, Inc (West Palm Beach, FL).

From the brief descriptions of these studies, it not clear whether they are designed to assess benefits of the technology to individuals or to the healthcare providers. To make an informed choice, the consumer needs to know the likelihood that being chipped will result in a better outcome in a health emergency than with other identification technologies. A well-designed study to examine that endpoint would have to be far larger than either of the two studies mentioned previously. The pilot studies may be better suited to demonstrate the benefits to the healthcare system in accessing patient insurance and health records data, which is a different matter entirely. (The second of these studies raises issues of obtaining consent from Alzheimer’s patients, a thorny bioethical issue in itself).

Given the uncertainties about the safety of implanted RFID chips, and uncertainties in the benefits that they may bring, caution is warranted. We agree with the caution reflected in a recent report of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs of the American Medical Association on the technology (Sade 2007):

Radio frequency identification (RFID) devices may help to identify patients, thereby improving the safety and efficiency of patient care, and may be used to enable secure access to patient clinical information. However, their efficacy and security have not been established. Therefore, physicians implanting such devices should take certain precautions: 1) The informed consent process must include disclosure of medical uncertain- ties associated with these devices. 2) Physicians should strive to protect patients’ privacy by storing confidential information only on RFID devices with informational security similar to that required of medical records. 3) Physicians should support research into the safety, efficacy, and potential non-medical uses of RFID devices in human beings.

Coercion

If receiving an RFID tag were purely a matter of consumer choice, few serious ethical issues would arise apart from generic concerns about consumer protection. Thus, for example, a consumer might reasonably choose to be chipped — preferably not in a tattoo parlor — to avoid having to carry a credit card or RFID tag on a key chain.

By far the most important and distinctive ethical issues connected with implanted RFID transponders result from the very real possibility that the chips might be implanted under real or implied coercion, coupled with the deep aversion — or at least unease — with which many individuals view the technology.

Despite extensive, and at times hyperbolic, discussion of the uses of implanted RFID chips in humans to be found on the Internet, few systematic studies have been reported on the acceptability of implanted RFID chips to average people. A small survey in 2003 (Hiltz et al. 2003) found that 18 of 23 people questioned objected to the idea of implantable chips. ”If they are putting something inside of you”, one respondent replied, ”it’s like you’re changing yourself. It’s not right” (Hiltz et al. 2003, 7).

People from different cultures will certainly differ in their acceptability of implanted RFID chips. In some cultures, altering the bodily image may ostracize individuals from their sociocultural networks. In the United States, some fundamentalist Christian groups vehemently object to implanted RFID tags as “marks of the beast.” Both Judaism and Islam prohibit tattoos, and their religious authorities may forbid implanted RFID tags for similar reasons. Other cultural and religious factors in acceptability of the technology have hardly been explored in discussions to date about implanting RFID chips in people for identification.

In view of widespread popular apprehension about the technology, proposals to “chip” individuals would raise extremely serious ethical issues if an element of coercion were involved, either direct or tacit. This can easily come about if RFID tags were to become widely adopted for access control or identification in nonmedical settings.

Indeed, a variety of proposals have been floated in public discussions that would involve coercive implantation of RFID chips, some on face value highly impractical. In March 2006, a columnist for The New Republic Online defended a proposal to implant RFID tags in sex offenders (Cottle 2006), pointing out that such people are already subject to extensive restrictions, and that tracking individuals through implanted RFID chips might be preferable to present practices, for example, residency restrictions based on Megan’s Law legislation that in some jurisdictions force convicted sex offenders to sleep under bridges or in their vehicles. However, the proposal raises obvious objections on practical grounds. Must every entrance to every school be equipped with an RFID reader to detect chipped individuals? Would it not be easy for a chipped individual to conceal the transponder from the reader? A more practical way to implement the plan would be to chip the teachers instead, and use the RFID readers to provide positive identification when they enter a school. We suspect that teachers’ unions would fiercely oppose such a plan.

Far more troubling (and thankfully very far from reality) is the proposal by Silverman (VeriChip’s Chairman of the Board) to “chip” guest workers entering the United States. One might argue that receiving implants would be voluntary for such individuals. But which immigrant, facing poverty at home and the prospects of a job in a new country, would be in a position to argue with demands to have a chip implanted as a condition of entry into the coun- try? Would college professors or bioethicists headed to the United States for a brief sabbatical or training be chipped as well as agricultural workers? If not, who would decide, and on what basis? If being chipped becomes a requirement for work by a noncitizen in the United States, what impact would there be on the global labor market? The prospects of being chipped will surely be a strong deterrent to others from coming here to work and learn.

Forcing immigrants to be chipped is deeply offensive on human rights grounds. It would frame the RFID chip as a branding device similar in theory to the brand of the western cowboy on cattle or to the tattoo of an inmate in a Nazi concentration camp. Arguably, it is a violation of Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which guarantees everybody the right to “life, liberty and security of person.” To the extent that forced implantation of a RFID chip in a person’s body is a violation of his/her privacy, it would also violate the privacy provision of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), to which the US is a party.

While implantable RFID technology is presently being marketed as a measure for patient protection, its chief benefit — convenient and reliable identification of an individual by means of a device that is difficult for the subject to lose — might well be more significant to organizations than to individuals, and the issue is intrinsically more complicated than one of consumer choice alone. In institutions that have adopted the use of implanted RFID tags for identification purposes, pressures will inevitably build on individuals to receive the tags. Suppose, for example, healthcare organizations with electronic records systems gave their patients a choice between maintaining possession of an identification card or receiving a chip? Would elderly, forgetful patients be pressured to receive a chip? What about a soldier in an army that decided to replace dog tags with implanted chips? Are these individuals less vulnerable to coercion to receive a chip than the hapless immigrants considered in Silverman’s proposal? Other technologies, such as fingerprint identification or retinal scans, allow reliable identification of individuals without the need to compromise bodily integrity.

Faced with widespread public concerns about coercive implantable RFID chips, several states have passed legislation regulating their use. In May 2006, for example, Wis- consin passed a bill (Assembly Bill 290) that would prohibit requiring anybody to have a microchip implanted. North Dakota and California have also passed similar bills. Enforcing such laws might be difficult if implanted chips, like drivers’ licenses, remain legally voluntary but become de facto requirements for many kinds of employment, voting, or receipt of health care.

Because of concerns discussed previously, a national dis- cussion is needed about the use of implanted RFID chips among the many groups potentially affected by the technology. Decisions about the use of the technology need to be made by a broader group of stakeholders than the engineers and companies involved in the field. A commitment must be made to restrict the technology to people who freely choose to be implanted, and to shield other individuals from real or implied coercion. As Anderson and Labay remarked (2006), a “decision about where to draw the line of acceptable use must be made soon, before the technology becomes rampant and it becomes too late to prevent misuse.” Or, in more specific terms, we have already implanted RFID tags in our dogs and cats. Is Aunt Millie next?