- A Scottish nightclub is about to become the first in
Britain to offer its customers the chance to have a microchip implanted
in their arm to save them carrying cash.
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- The "digital wallet", the size of a grain of
rice, guarantees entry to the club and allows customers to buy drinks on
account. Brad Stevens, owner of Bar Soba in Glasgow, said his customers
had responded enthusiastically to the idea.
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- The VeriChip is inserted by a medical professional and
then scanned for its unique ID number as a customer enters the bar.
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- "There are a number of advantages, from instant
access, to not having to carry money or credit cards, to letting bar staff
know a customer's name and favourite drink," said Mr Stevens. "By
the time you walk through the door to the bar, your favourite drink is
waiting for you and the bar staff can greet you by name."
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- However, he said the bar would also have to make sure
that customers with the chip had a limit on how much they could spend to
prevent them drinking beyond their ability to pay.
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- The scheme was criticised by a spokesman for the Scottish
Executive, who said the microchip could encourage excessive drinking, and
by Notags, a consumer group set up to resist the spread of radio frequency
identification devices.
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- A spokesman said: "The chip contains your name and
ID number and, as this could be read remotely without your knowledge, that
is already too much information."
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