In today’s society, technology continues to find new ways to protect our children and families. Several devises have already been developed to track children when they are away from home. These devises work by GPS signal to track the movement of the child and are worn externally or are imbedded in an item of clothing. There are also GPS devices already approved for implantation in humans. VeriChip was the only Food and Drug Administration-approved human-implantable microchip for use in medical purposes (DHHS pg. 71702-71704). These developments have sparked a debate over whether we should consider implanting microchips in humans for tracking and safety reasons and not just medical purposes.
Today there are microchips implanted into pets for tracking purposes yet they do not have a GPS signal and only work once the animal is found and not to track their location. These same kinds of devises may be offered in the future for humans. Our government should never allow microchips to be implanted in humans for any purposes much less mandate their use.
External tracking devices currently available have the capability to track children for safety without the need for implanting a microchip in the body. This kind of tracking device would serve no purpose in tracking the child’s location. As stated in this article: Chip implants would be of little use in tracking a missing child as readers only have a limited range (Lane par 14). The FDA believes that a person’s overall health may be affected by tissue reaction, movement of implanted chip, failure of transponder, among many other complications. In addition, it is clear that there are many risks involving implantation of these devise (DHHS pg. 71702-71704). The FDA also has a waiver to be signed that releases them from any liability in regards to these devises, not to mention they are also currently conducting research to see if these devices can cause cancer in the patient implanted with these