Maria Inês Costa (Managing Editor of this Blog and PhD student at the School of Law of University of Minho. FCT research scholarship holder – UI/BD/154522/2023)
A website launched just a few days before Valentine’s Day, with a Portuguese domain name entitled “Relationchip” garnered some attention in Portuguese social media for its innovative and controversial proposal to promote transparency in romantic relationships: i.e., through the use of two subcutaneous microchips and an app. As reported on the product’s website at the time of initial research for this post – providing information and a setup that differs from the one currently available –, “once implanted, the chips connect to the app and allow couples to access features such as real-time location tracking, password synchronisation and close contact alerts.”[1] Even though it raised suspicions that it might not be genuine, this product was being promoted on the website as being capable of reducing misunderstandings in relationships and strengthening intimacy with loved ones.
And, in fact, it was revealed that this device was fake, a fictitious product created by the Portuguese Association for Victim Support (APAV) to draw attention to controlling behaviour in romantic relationships, which is now part of young people’s daily lives through mobile phones and has become normalised: this is the information available on the website at the time of writing this article. For days, the fake product’s website was available, and criticism has already been levelled at the campaign’s content, given that it may have influenced or corroborated ideas about controlling one’s intimate partner through the use of new technologies, especially among young people.
It strikes us that, among other relevant matters, the use of the microchip concept in this campaign is ultimately in line with a broader discussion about emerging technologies that are challenging a series of crucial normative – and empirical – notions which are losing stability in current times. Notably, one of the concerns raised by this technology falls within the scope of exercising unprecedented control and subjecting someone to a state of constant surveillance.
Let us first consider some trends in recent years that help us map the use and purposes of microchip implants. Back in 2017, the Belgian company NewFusion had proposed that its employees use radio frequency identification (RFID) chips[2] placed in their hands, whose information would be read when in proximity to the reader, to which staff members voluntarily agreed.[3] This sparked some debate, particularly over the possibility of allowing constant tracking as technology evolves and distance ceases to be an obstacle.[4] Furthermore, as others have argued, despite this being a voluntary procedure, employees may feel compelled to comply with company policy and have the chip implanted to avoid unfavourable repercussions.[5]
In 2020, it was reported that Sweden was at the forefront of microchip implantation, with thousands of people using them to perform everyday activities such as accessing their smartphones, their own homes, or setting an alarm, with some expressing hope that such technology would allow them to do more in the future, such as carrying out payments.[6] And it did not take long for this to become a reality, with the first and only implant from Polish start-up Walletmor enabling contactless payments, which is said to offer enhanced security and zero chance of theft.[7]
More recently, considerable attention was drawn to the first microchip implant in the human brain in an American patient, in the year of 2024, developed by the company Neuralink. The patient had been paralysed since 2016 and, with the chip, he asserts he has regained his independence, as he can now control a computer with his thoughts alone.[8] In the EU, this development even prompted the submission of a Parliamentary question with a request for a written answer from the Commission in March 2024,[9] where the Commission was asked to provide answers, inter alia, on the measures it intended to take to ensure respect for the principles of human dignity and fundamental rights, especially of patients. The answer on behalf of the European Commission provided the following month focused on the framework applied to such implants as medical devices, therefore falling under the scope of Regulation (EU) 2017/745 on medical devices (MDR).[10]
The reason for mentioning this case is to highlight that microchips used in the medical field are different from those used for commercial purposes. For example, a microchip implanted in a patient that interferes with brain activity – with the aim of helping that person achieve a significantly better quality of life –, is a high-risk medical device that has different ethical and legal effects[11] when compared to a subcutaneous microchip used for identification, access and login, contactless payments, etc.
The use of the latter – whether to allegedly ensure greater security and scrutiny in the workplace, personal financial security, greater privacy and comfort in daily life – prompts a relevant discussion on the unprecedent state of surveillance it can foster. In fact, two decades ago, the European Group on Ethics (EGE) had recognised that “ICT implants, due to their network capability could be misused in several ways for all kinds of social surveillance or manipulation”, and that “the implantation of microchips with the potential for individual and social forms of control [was] already taking place.”[12] With the specific case of RFID chips, there is a manifest concern over individuals becoming easily identifiable, since “the implanted microchips and their connected networks hold a significant amount of information, including sensitive data like health-related information.”[13]
These forms of control are, in turn, consistent with what is postulated in biopolitics theory, whereby overt violence is replaced by more subtle forms of exercising power.[14] And, increasingly, what undergoes the exercise of this power is not only biological life itself, nor a static social issue, but their intertwining. As Robert Esposito explains, “with the blurring of the distinction between the internal and the external (…) that has long characterised sovereign power, the latter is now in direct contact with matters of life and death that no longer concern specific areas but the world in its entirety (…) law and politics appear increasingly involved in something that exceeds their usual designation, dragging them into a dimension that goes beyond their conceptual apparatus (…) and this turbulence is precisely the object of biopolitics.” [15] Through Esposito’s perspective, we are given a valuable lens of analysis through which we can see the legal system and the political system interwoven with the aim of regulating lives, which are, in turn, increasingly mediated by technology.
Indeed, with the advent of technologies that not only extensively process the body – such as biometrics[16] – but also become intimately intertwined with it – actually becoming part of it – we face a unique entanglement of biology and technology. This not only poses significant risks to people’s health and their right to privacy, for instance, but also to their very identity. Thus, what is at stake is not only the regulatory work to help protect the rights that are put at risk by the practice of implanting microchips, but a much broader discussion about the types of choices we are making that may interfere with the very reality of being, on which the whole building of contemporary law is based.
In this regard, let us consider Michel Foucault’s seminal argument that normalisation would be the process of constructing an optimal model, according to which an established norm would be achieved. The “normal” would then ultimately be defined as that which can align with and satisfy the norm. This process is, therefore, one whereby the population are made to conform to certain standards of behaviour, not necessarily through brute force, but by making them internalise certain ideas.[17] If the erosion of the private space becomes normalised, what can we make of the ideal of democracy? In fact, privacy, in addition to being a private good, must also be understood as a public good in a constitutional democracy – and, as such, cannot be freely negotiated: it is essential for its sustainability.[18]
The use of microchip implants reveals a specific entanglement between humans and technology, which in turn creates ontological tension, as well as pointing towards a more transparent society, whereby the domain of intimacy increasingly loses ground. Indeed, as technologies evolve to increasingly merge with our real-time experiences, we may lose track of the boundaries that separate intimate from public life. Although, as far as we know, there are still no microchips available to supposedly improve romantic relationships through what can only be qualified as a loss of privacy, there is no guarantee that such ideas will not gain traction and materialise, reinforcing and normalising new forms of control.
If there is any phenomenon that we have witnessed with increasing frequency in recent times, it is the development of technologies with profound impacts on the legal and ethical landscape, such as artificial intelligence (AI), and the legal system’s efforts to keep pace with the innovations and challenges that such technologies introduce. In this regard, it will be important to remain vigilant to future developments in the use of implantable microchips, given the similar – but also novel – concerns that it may raise.
[1] See https://mudaochip.pt/.
[2] “Radio frequency identification, abbreviated as RFID, is an automatic identification method relying on storing and remotely retrieving data, using devices called RFID tags or transponders. An RFID tag is an object that can be applied to or incorporated into a product for the purposes of identification through the use of radio waves.” See Eurostat, “Glossary: Radio frequency identification (RFID)”, n.d., https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Glossary:Radio_frequency_identification_(RFID).
[3] Euronews, “Chips in the hand to identify who we are”, 14 February 2017, https://www.euronews.com/next/2017/02/14/chips-in-the-hand-to-identify-who-we-are.
[4] Plixavra Vogiatzoglou, “Microchipping humans: a futuristic utopia or a dystopian future?”, KU LEUVEN – CITIP, 11 April 2017, https://www.law.kuleuven.be/citip/blog/microchipping-humans-a-futuristic-utopia-or-a-dystopian-future/.
[5] Shainaz Firfiray, “Microchip implants are threatening workers’ rights”, 22 November 2018, https://warwick.ac.uk/news/knowledge-centre-archive/business/work/microchipping/.
[6] Lauren Chadwick & Ric Wasserman, Will microchip implants be the next big thing in Europe?, Euronews, 12 May 2020, https://www.euronews.com/health/2020/05/12/will-microchip-implants-be-the-next-big-thing-in-europe.
[7] See https://walletmor.com/pages/security.
[8] See Lara Lewington, Liv McMahon & Tom Gerken, “The man with a mind-reading chip in his brain – thanks to Elon Musk”, BBC News, 23 March 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cewk49j7j1po. See also Alex Hern, “Elon Musk says Neuralink has implanted its first brain chip in human”, The Guardian, 30 January 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/29/elon-musk-neuralink-first-human-brain-chip-implant.
[9] European Parliament, Parliamentary question – E-000732/2024 – Ethical and legal aspects of brain chips – the implications of microchip implants for human rights, 7 March 2024, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2024-000732_EN.html.
[10] Regulation (EU) 2017/745 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 April 2017 on medical devices, amending Directive 2001/83/EC, Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 and Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 and repealing Council Directives 90/385/EEC and 93/42/EEC.
[11] Even if there is a relevant overlap of certain aspects, namely regarding privacy.
[12] European Group on Ethics, “Ethical aspects of ICT implants in the human body: opinion presented to the Commission by the European Group on Ethics”, MEMO/05/97, Brussels, 17 March 2005.
[13] Tayyibe Bardakçı, “Privacy, surveillance, and implanting RFID microchips to humans”, International Journal of Human and Health Sciences, vol. 8, no. 1 (2024): 90, https://doi.org/10.31344/ijhhs.v8i1.626.
[14] Alexandre Franco de Sá, “Prefácio”, in Bios. Biopolítica e filosofia, trans. M. Freitas da Costa, Robert Esposito (Lisboa: Edições 70, 2010), VII.
[15] Robert Esposito, Bios. Biopolítica e Filosofia, trans. M. Freitas da Costa (Lisboa: Edições 70, 2010), 30. Excerpt freely translated by the author.
[16] On the subject, see other posts on this blog: José Vegar Velho, “Looking identity in the eye: brief considerations on the frontiers of biometric data and identity”, The Official Blog of UNIO – Thinking and Debating Europe, 7 October 2025, https://officialblogofunio.com/2025/10/07/looking-identity-in-the-eye-brief-considerations-on-the-frontiers-of-biometric-data-and-identity/; Maria Inês Costa, “Iris collection as a proof of personhood: current trends on biometric recognition”, The Official Blog of UNIO – Thinking and Debating Europe, 17 May 2024, https://officialblogofunio.com/2024/05/17/iris-collection-as-a-proof-of-personhood-current-trends-on-biometric-recognition/.
[17] See Michel Foucault, Vigiar e Punir, trans. Pedro Elói Duarte (Lisbon: Edições 70), 2013.
[18] Mireille Hildebrandt, “Chapter 23 – Technology and the end of Law”, in Facing the limits of the law, ed. B. Keirsbilck, W. Devroe, E. Claes (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2009), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79856-9_23448.
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