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Did a Wisconsin company implant microchips in its employees?

By Tom Kertscher
YES

News organizations reported in July 2017 that Three Square Market, a retail technology company in River Falls, Wisconsin, microchipped its employees.

A reference to the chipping was made in an Aug. 26, 2023, social media post by a user with 22,000 followers.

Fifty of the 80 employees at Three Square Market, a provider of self-service breakroom vending machines, voluntarily agreed to be “chipped,” the reports said.

A microchip the size of a grain of rice was inserted in the hand. It allowed employees to get door access to enter the building, sign into their computer and pay for snacks by waving at a sensor.

In December 2022, Three Square Market was acquired for $41 million by Cantaloupe, a Pennsylvania digital payments and software company.

More than 50,000 people have chosen to receive this type of chipping, according to Zhanna Malekos Smith, a systems engineering professor at the U.S. Military Academy.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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Wisconsin Watch, the news arm of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, increases the quality and quantity of investigative reporting in Wisconsin, while training current and future investigative journalists. Its work fosters an informed citizenry and strengthens democracy.
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