GPS Links to Human-Implantable Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)Microchip Tags, used for Emergency Management, Medical, and Security purposes.
By: Jayne Abraham, ETM567, ASU Polytechnic College of Technology and Innovation
Photos and data received: 8 Sept 2008 from http://www.verichipcorp.com/
Technology based on this millennium derived from the need for better human tracking has become a reality thanks to the only FDA approved human-implantable Class 2 medical device RFID microchip. This implantable device is about the size of a grain of rice, and has-skin sensing capabilities. It is the smallest RFID with the longest battery life and has an “auto-ID technology platform” which provides location awareness, data collection, barcode, Wi-Fi, and active/passive RFID functions.These are marketed for Security, Medical, and Emergency Management platforms. After the terrorist attacks from September 11, 2001 the need for such an identification tagging system arose. Development of these units were approved by the FDA and utilized during the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Response. The ability for automatic identification via this microchip is the unique 16-unit identifier that is read with the proprietry VeriChip handheld or wall mounted reader. The dormant chip receives the signal from the reader that activates the RFID microchip and the unique identifier is read.
“At the time and point of the microchip's insertion or attachment, a multitude of identifying characteristics of the body and associated evidentiary items can be entered into a web-enabled database. Users can now scan the microchip and transfer the ID to a Ricoh camera, which automatically embeds the VeriChip ID into every subsequent image taken. Ricoh cameras also use GPS to embed into the image the location where it was taken." (http://www.verichipcorp.com/content/solutions/emergency_management)
When I first read about the VeriTrace TM technology I was under the impression these microchips were GPS enabled RFID tags. The link between the cameras scripting the GPS location into the image at the location of the body is the correlation for GPS tracking, which in disaster recovery can provide useful statistical data when compiled.
