Conspiracies and ‘rigged’ ID cards

I’m reading that dozens of Greeks have been lining up at police stations in some parts of the country, wanting to renew their identification cards before the new, more advanced ones are launched on September 1.

These people are being lured by conspiracy theorists on social media who claim that the microchip embedded in the new IDs enables geo-tracking and anyone with the new ID will be able to be tracked by “Big Brother,” strengthening the state’s control over citizens.

This whole conspiracy campaign is a new chapter in the claims of certain priests and religious groups who have been opposing the use of computers for years and believe that the satanic number 666 is inherent in all new technology, as well as the more general conspiracy debate about supposedly putting a chip into the arms of citizens through vaccinations.

The government, through the minister for citizen protection, Giannis Oikonomou, responded to such outlandish claims by noting that the new IDs have “nothing alien, anti-Christian or demonic,” and that the chips installed do not provide geo-tracking capabilities.

It is noted that similar chips to those of the new IDs already exist for security reasons in passports, credit and debit cards, while it is known that government services currently have the ability to track every citizen who uses a mobile phone. Opponents of the new IDs are still talking about an “electronic file” for every citizens and are organizing protest rallies in Thessaloniki and Athens.

Obviously, it is impossible for the government to defeat superstitions, prejudices and the ignorance of a part of the population with announcements based on logic. This is also why, despite the very successful Covid vaccination campaign organized by the Greek authorities, which was praised by the entire world, the country had one of the highest death rates of unvaccinated elderly people in Europe.

The government must organize a public information campaign on the new IDs too. Furthermore, to cut the shameful lines outside the police stations, it should oblige those who renew their old IDs now to acquire the new one within 2024.

The state must modernize at all cost, turning its back on the various conspiracy riddled kooks.