Science fiction author Elizabeth Moon has rekindled the debate on whether it's a good idea to "barcode" infants at birth in an interview on a BBC radio program, the New York Daily News reported Friday.

“I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached ― a barcode if you will ― an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals,” she said on The Forum, a weekly show that features "a global thinking" discussing a "radical, inspiring or controversial idea" for 60 seconds, according to the report.

Moon believes the tools most commonly used for surveillance and identification -- like video cameras and DNA testing -- are slow, costly and often ineffective.

In her opinion, human barcoding would save a lot of time and money.

The proposal isn’t too far-fetched - it is already technically possible to "barcode" a human - but does it violate our rights to privacy? Opponents argue that giving up anonymity would cultivate an “Orwellian” society where all citizens can be tracked, the Daily News said.

“To have a record of everywhere you go and everything you do would be a frightening thing,” Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, told the newspaper.

He warned of a “check-point society” where everyone carries an internal passport and has to show their papers at every turn.

There are already, and increasingly, ways to electronically track people. Since 2006, new U.S. passports include radio frequency identification tags (RFID) that store all the information in the passport, plus a digital picture of the owner, the Daily News said.

In 2002, an implantable ID chip called VeriChip was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The chip could be implanted in a person's arm, and when scanned, could pull up a 16 digit ID number containing information about the user.

It was discontinued in 2010 amid concerns about privacy and safety.

Still scientists and engineers have not given up on the idea. A handful of enterprising companies have stepped into the void left by VeriChip, and are developing ways to integrate technology and man, the newspaper said.