瑞典铁路开通扫描微芯片检票服务

When you’re in a rush, it can be easy to forget your travel card on the way out of the house. But for around 3,000 commuters* in Sweden, this isn’t something to worry about.

The brave commuters have futuristic* microchip implants embedded into their hands to pay for their journey. The train conductor can read the chip with a smartphone to confirm the passenger has paid for their journey.

In June, SJ Rail, the Swedish train operator, announced that around 100 people were using microchips to pay for their journey. But the BBC revealed that an estimated 3,000 people now use the service.

Stephen Ray, who is overseeing the SJ Rail project, told the BBC: “You could use the microchip implant to replace a lot of stuff, your credit cards, the keys to your house, the keys to your car.”

Microchip implants are not new in Sweden, and an estimated 20,000 people already have them.

But the technology raises security and privacy issues, as the data generated could be used to track people.

When it was launched in June, one flaw in the system meant that rail staff would sometimes be shown a passenger’s LinkedIn profile instead of their ticket information.

(SD-Agencies)