The story in question, though undoubtedly heard on your local NPR affiliate (as it was on mine), is actually a Marketplace story (from American Public Media).
The opener of the story was a young woman in a doctor’s office who self-reported that she had a “GPS tracking” device in her side, along with a fresh incision wound. She was an unwilling prostitute, captive to her pimp, and had the device implanted in her by him. The x-rays and surgical extraction mentioned by other posters here are in the story as well, along with the revelation that it was really a veterinary pet tracking chip.
The mention of “GPS” was by the victim herself, so I’d be willing to bet the pimp told her that, either because he was honestly that stupid, or he wanted her to believe the tracking was infallible.
The thrust of the story, which this discussion is missing, is that the medical profession is just now becoming aware that they have a large role in fighting human trafficking in the same way they have an acknowledged role in fighting chile abuse: they see and treat the victims and have to opportunity to end the abuse by reporting.
The microchip angle isn’t the point of the story. As an aid to trafficking, it doesn’t seem like it would be that effective because of its short range. Unless you have a cooperative network of traffickers who exchange tag information like the pet tracking equivalent, and one pimp will scan a new prostitute and turn her back over to her old trafficker out of a sense of decency and fair play. :dubious:
If a system of legal human trafficking, like antebellum US slavery, this might work. Now, the shitbags doing it either have a mistaken understanding of what it does for them, or do understand the limitations but lie to their victims to make them misunderstand how effective it isn’t.
It was on Marketplace. In the case of this story, while the people reading this thread know how microchipping works, the person it was implanted in may not. Her trafficker was trying to impress upon her that she couldn’t leave, and if she tried, she’d be found and punished. If he was actually tracking her, it was probably through her phone, but psychologically “I can find your phone” is a much weaker message.
And it wasn’t a mental institution. She was in an ER, one that often takes in patients with mental problems but also deals with a lot of human trafficking victims.
I also heard the story on Marketplace, and I had the same questions about the effectiveness of it. I know the technology part is not the point of the story, but I kept wondering how an RFID chip was supposed to allow tracking at a distance. But I can see, as others have mentioned, that maybe the woman, the pimp, or both, didn’t know how it worked.
Many Christians believe that micro chipping will be the mark of the beast as foretold in the Bible. It will become where no one can buy or sell without having the mark.
A small gps tracker that can relay off a cell tower is going to be about the size of a small matchbox. Thats not going to give you a ton of battery life, hooray for near field charging.
I’d swear that there was news about a Latin American president or other bigwig who was either publicizing that his people would find him, thanks to his microchip, if ever kidnapped or that he had in fact been rescued by his people thanks to his microchip. But in either case, it was implied that it had GPS tracking technology somehow (which everyone here agreed was nonsense.)
I found and fixed a few more errors after hitting submit, but by the grace of the 5-minute edit timer a few of my typographic autopilot errors came through.
My personal conspiracy theory is that the Preview button lies. :dubious:
Chipping for pets and some livestock is widespread. Rescued and adopted pets often have more than one. My previous dog had three; two in his neck where you’d expect to find them, and one down his side, near his hind leg. The vet was surprised to find a chip there. Perhaps it migrated; we’ll never know. We got him from an adoption group, and we don’t know his previous family/families.
I heard the story also. I think the mental problem angle came from the doctor (who was interviewed in the piece) thinking the woman had a mental problem until he saw the incision and decided to have her X-rayed. I got the impression that no one believed her until the evidence showed up on the X-ray.
The man was her boyfriend/pimp. What the story didn’t cover was if this was turned over to the police and what happened after. But, as mentioned, the story was really about the medical profession getting more involved in looking for signs of human trafficking.
I remember a documentary some years ago about a club in Spain that used implanted chips (the procedure was apparently very easy). They would allow for immediate entrance, access to certain parts of the club (“VIP” area?), paying beverages, etc…
From the documentary, they played on the “cool” and novelty factor. Seemed like a marketing tool, mostly.
