VeriChip is a company that makes RFID chips that can be implanted in humans or animals. So far, it hasn’t caught on all that well. They have only implanted about a thousand chips in humans at this point, but they are more commonly used in pets and livestock. The Department of Energy even uses these chips implanted in salmon to track their migration.

The chips are designed to uniquely identify the person. Thus they can be used for security access or to authorize financial transactions.

The article makes clear that people’s concerns about implanted RFID chips is usually in relation to privacy. But not to worry: the chips can only be scanned at very close range.

The chip is an ID tag, Fulcher emphasized. When a person with an embedded chip passes near a scanner, the dormant chip simply wakes up and issues an ID number. The administrator of the security systems and databases determines how the information is used. A person has to stand within a few feet of a scanner for the tag to wake up. Thus, the tags can be used to follow someone’s steps only when they are near scanners. The company’s hand scanners can ping chips about 12 inches away, although the devices for counting salmon are 10 to 12 feet away from the fish.

That is pretty clear: the range is about one to twelve feet. But the very next two paragraphs now lead you to believe that something much bigger is afoot.

Also, VeriChip is working on an implant that will contain a Global Positioning System. Such a device would allow an individual with a scanner to pinpoint someone’s position on the globe.

The lab device, however, is relatively large right now, about the size of a pacemaker.

I’m willing to accept that the RFID chips are detectable only within a dozen feet or so. Their size and the fact that they don’t carry a power supply necessitate the short range. Then why put the GPS with the chip itself? Why not build the GPS into the scanner? How accurate do you need to get your GPS position? The object itself must be within a twelve foot radius of the scanner. Adding the bulk and complexity to an object that is going to be implanted into a human body doesn’t make sense unless the RFID is going to respond from a much greater distance than twelve feet. The article doesn’t say this, but what else could possibly cause them to build GPS into RFID?