Welcome to the machine

Published on Friday, 9th April 2021

Several of the trash cans in the conference hallways had tossed-away name badges in them. Mine was about to join this family of discards. This all happened after we were handed name badges on registration that, as we were informed, had RFID tracking chips embedded in them. This was touted as allowing the organizers to manage space and other elements of the conference. The badges were received with many questions and, in some case, almost disbelief that this was happening. I think we all just felt under surveillance and by whom or what was unclear. Whether we kept or tossed out the badges, THEY would know. We were trapped.