Question

Patrick Paumen causes a stir whenever he pays for something in a shop or restaurant. This is because the 37-year-old doesn’t need to use a bank card or his mobile phone to pay. Instead, he simply places his left hand near the contactless card reader, and the payment goes through.

2

“The reactions I get from cashiers are priceless!” says Mr. Paumen, a security guard from the Netherlands.

3

He is able to pay using his hand because back in 2019 he had a contactless payment microchip injected under his skin.

4

“The procedure hurts as much as when someone pinches your skin,” says Mr. Paumen.

5

A microchip was first implanted into a human back in 1998, but it is only during the past decade that the technology has been available commercially.

6

And when it comes to implantable payment chips, British-Polish firm Walletmor says that last year it became the first company to offer them for sale.

7

“The implant can be used to pay for a drink on the beach in Rio, a coffee in New York, a haircut in Paris—or at your local grocery store,” says founder and chief executive Wojtek Paprota. “It can be used wherever contactless payments are accepted.”

8

Walletmor’s chip, which weighs less than a gram and is little bigger than a grain of rice, is comprised of a tiny microchip and an antenna encased in a biopolymer—a naturally sourced material, similar to plastic.

9

Mr. Paprota adds that it is entirely safe, has regulatory approval, works immediately after being implanted, and will stay firmly in place. It also does not require a battery, or other power source. The firm says it has now sold more than 500 of the chips.

10

The technology Walletmor uses is near-field communication, or NFC, the contactless payment system in smartphones. Other payment implants are based on radio-frequency identification (RFID), which is the similar technology typically found in physical contactless debit and credit cards.

11

For many of us, the idea of having such a chip implanted in our body is an appalling one, but a 2021 survey of more than 4,000 people across the UK and the European Union found that 51 percent would consider it.

12

However, without giving a percentage figure, the report added that “invasiveness and security issues remained a major concern” for respondents. Mr. Paumen says he doesn’t have any of these worries.

13

“Chip implants contain the same kind of technology that people use on a daily basis,” he says. “From key fobs to unlock doors, public transit cards like the London Oyster card, or bank cards with contactless payment function.

14

“The reading distance is limited by the small antenna coil inside the implant. The implant needs to be within the electromagnetic field of a compatible RFID [or NFC] reader. Only when there is a magnetic coupling between the reader and the transponder can the implant be read.”

15

He adds that he is not concerned that his whereabouts could be tracked.

16

“RFID chips are used in pets to identify them when they’re lost,” he says. “But it’s not possible to locate them using an RFID chip implant—the missing pet needs to be found physically. Then the entire body gets scanned until the RFID chip implant is found and read.”

17

Yet the issue with such chips, (and what causes concern), is whether in the future they become ever more advanced, and packed full of a person’s private data. And, in turn, whether this information is secure, and if a person could indeed be tracked.

18

Financial technology, or fintech, expert Theodora Lau is co-author of the book Beyond Good: How Technology is Leading a Purpose-Driven Business Revolution.

19

She says that implanted payment chips are just “an extension of the internet of things.” By that she means another new way of connecting

Choose one of the following items to discuss with your group.

What questions does this article leave you with?
Do you think you would like to be a “biohacker” with microchip implants? Why, or why not?

Answer 1

I’ll choose: “What questions does this article leave you with?” Here are focused questions you can use to guide a group discussion, grouped by theme.

Technology & security
- How exactly does the implant store payment credentials? Is it a tokenized card number, a direct account link, or something else?
- How resistant is the implant to skimming, cloning, relay attacks, or other NFC/RFID hacks?
- Can the implant be remotely disabled, updated, or wiped if it’s lost, stolen, or the owner changes bank details?
- What happens if the implant fails or is physically damaged? Is there error/rollback behavior that could cause accidental charges?

Health & medical
- What are the short-term and long-term medical risks of implanting this device (infection, rejection, migration, tissue reaction)?
- Are there standardized clinical trials or peer-reviewed studies on health outcomes for these implants?
- How easy is the procedure, who performs it, and what are the recommended aftercare and removal processes?

Legal & regulatory
- Which regulators have approved these devices and under what standards (medical device, consumer electronics, payment instrument)?
- What legal protections exist if the chip is used for fraud or if financial institutions deny liability?
- How are data-protection laws (e.g., GDPR) applied to personal data stored on or associated with an implant?

Privacy & surveillance
- Could implant-related data be aggregated by companies, banks, or governments to build a profile of a person’s purchases and movements?
- Does the implant ever send identifying data beyond the payment interaction (e.g., UID broadcast, persistent identifiers)?
- Who owns the transaction logs and metadata linked to the implanted device?

Ethics & social impact
- Could implants create new forms of exclusion or coercion (e.g., employers requiring chips, social pressure to implant)?
- How might implants affect personal autonomy, body integrity, or cultural/religious views?
- Will certain groups (older people, children, prisoners) be particularly vulnerable to misuse?

Practical use & user experience
- What is the real-world reliability of payments across different countries, terminals, and merchants?
- Are there compatibility issues between NFC vs RFID terminals, and will some places refuse implanted payments?
- How does cost compare (implant price + procedure) to alternatives like phones or cards, and who pays?

Economic & market
- Who benefits economically from wider adoption (manufacturers, payment networks, healthcare providers)?
- What is the business model if implants need replacement/upgrades—subscription, one-time sale, or implanted hardware obsolescence?

Future & scenario planning
- If implants evolve to hold more personal data (IDs, medical records), how can security scale to protect that information?
- Could implants be used for non-consensual tracking or access control in authoritarian settings? How would society guard against that?
- What regulations or technical standards should be put in place now to prevent future harms?

Quick group tasks
- Pick your top 3 concerns from the list and spend 10 minutes on each.
- Roleplay: one person is a manufacturer, one a regulator, one a privacy advocate—debate approval criteria.
- Vote: would you get an implant? (Yes / No / Unsure) Discuss reasons.

If you want, I can convert these into a printable worksheet, a short debate script, or provide sources on implant safety, Walletmor specifics, and NFC/RFID security research. Which would help your group most?