The Sydney body hacker who had an Opal card implanted in his hand has discovered that it no longer works, claiming the NSW government cancelled the service.
Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow – which, I shit you not, is his legal name – had an ordinary Opal card cut down, placed in biocompatible plastic and implanted under the skin on his left hand by a body piercer back in April of 2017.
At the time, the NSW government had threatened to cancel the card because it had been tampered with, but as it was never registered to his name, there wasn’t really much they could do. It appears they’ve come good on those threats, with old mate Meow-Meow returning from an overseas trip to find the chip failing to work.
The trip? Oh, no big deal, just a cyborg convention in Texas. What of it? “I was actually at a cyborg convention, which is kind of ironic and hilarious,” he told SMH. “It was all about regulation and cyborg rights.”
When he recently tried to tap on with his hand, it wouldn’t let him through, so he called the Opal support line, who he says gave him a “boring bureaucratic answer”. Tough break.
“This is only a bloody story because they cancelled my card,” he said. “How often do you see the words ‘innovation’ and ‘public transport’ in the same sentence in Sydney?”
So how did the government cotton on to Meow-Meow’s implanted card? Well, I’d hazard a guess it has something to do with the $200 fine he got last year for riding without a valid ticket, which he will contest in court on the 16th of March.
After this, he said he plans on launching legal action agains Transport for NSW for unlawfully cancelling his card. “This is case law in creation and it’s fun to be at the centre of this,” he said.
I don’t know if I’d call a litigious situation fun, but hey, whatever floats your goat, bud.
“This is a scenario so unusual that their lawyers never foresaw this happening because, if they did, they would have written it in there,” he said.
It has, however, piqued the interest of the international community, who Meow-Meow says will be looking closely at the verdict of his upcoming case.
Good luck, Mr. Meow-Meow, may your weird cyborg pursuits be fruitful and free of government interference.
