-Caveat Lector- from - http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,50004,00.html?tw=wn20020125
Kidnapped? GPS to the Rescue By Julia Scheeres 2:00 a.m. Jan. 25, 2002 PST Foreign executives and other individuals who are frequent kidnapping targets in Latin America will soon be able to use implantable ID chips and personal GPS devices in an attempt to thwart their abductors. Applied Digital Solutions announced Thursday it had reached an agreement with a distributor to sell its VeriChip and Digital Angel products in three South American countries. The Palm Beach, Florida, company refused to discuss the particulars of the deal -- including the names of the countries or the distributor -- for security reasons. "We don't want the bad guys to find out," said Keith Bolton, chief technology officer. In recent years, a rash of abductions have plagued Latin American countries. Colombia is the kidnapping capital of the world, with more than 3,000 people nabbed in that country each year, according to the State Department - http://travel.state.gov/colombia_warning.html Applied Digital Solutions decided to market its products -- which were originally designed for medical purposes and to track parolees -- in South America, after security firms showed interest in using the devices to track and recover kidnapped clients. VeriChip - http://www.adsx.com/VeriChip/verichip.html - is similar to the devices that have been implanted in millions of pets - http://www.gcn.com/archives/sl/1997/November/desk.htm - in the United States in recent years, which allow animal shelters to identify the pets and contact their owners. The chip, which is slightly larger than a grain of rice and transmits two to three sentences of data, can be read by a scanner up to four feet away. It is injected into the subject's forearm or shoulder under local anesthesia during an outpatient procedure and leaves no mark, Bolton said. Applied Digital Solutions originally planned to sell the chip to people with pacemakers or other internal medical devices as a way of transmitting health information -- such as allergies -- to hospital workers in emergency situations. The second product, Digital Angel - http://www.digitalangel.net/ - which combines a global satellite positioning system and monitoring service, was designed with people who stray in mind, such as parolees or Alzheimer's patients. The system combines a watch and a device the size of a pack of cigarettes that clips onto a waist band or a belt like a pager. "We agreed to distribute the products (in South America) because it's consistent with our mission to save lives and improve the quality of life," he said. The GPS system could help locate kidnapping victims, and the VeriChip could identify them if they were drugged -- or in a worst case scenario -- killed. The two products will be bundled together for sale in South America, and initial orders exceed $300,000. The Verichip -- which must be approved by the FDA before it is sold in the United States -- didn't require the same clearance in the South American market. Security experts had mixed reaction to the company's announcement. "If the police are notified and are able to use the GPS to track you down, the device is going to be paramount," said Greg Pearson, director of Protective Services for the Steele Foundation - http://www.steelefoundation.com/ - a risk management company in San Francisco. In some situations, it may be safer to negotiate with captors than to send in the commandos, added Sean McWeeney, president of the Fairfax, Virginia-based Corporate Risk International - http://www.corprisk.com/ "If you're being held by kidnappers, you want to be careful," McWeeney said. "If everybody's armed, there's a high likelihood of a shootout, and the last thing you want to do is to get caught in the crossfire." Since it was first announced on December 19, 2001, the VeriChip has been featured by dozens of media outlets. While civil libertarians have raised fears about people being implanted with the chip against their will, the company said it has received more than 2,000 e-mails from teenagers who have volunteered to be "chipped." <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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