RFID helps Mexico's Richie rich to outsmart kidnappers

Filed in archive Privacy and Security on August 26, 2008

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Nina Shannon

This sounds pretty interesting. A security firm in Mexico has been offering RFID implants to people so that in case they are kidnapped it becomes easier for the officials to trace them and surprisingly this concept has found a lot of takers.

The story goes like this. Mexico figures among the list of worst countries for abduction and it has witnessed incidents of kidnapping jump by forty percent between period of 2004 and 2007 and these are only the official statistics. These figures have already sent shiver down the spines of richie rich of Mexico who feel they could be the next target of kidnappers.

Here a crystal encased chip of the size of rice grain is injected into the body of a person and the transmitter in the chip sends out radio signals enabling satellites to pinpoint the location of the person being searched. Now it would become easier to search a person even if he or she has been stuffed in the boot of the car.

The chip retails for $4,000 apart from an annual fee of $2,200 and it has already found a lot of takers after all who would like to pay million of dollars as ransom to kidnappers and above all risk their precious lives!! It seems that the kidnappers will soon become unemployed and will have to start looking for alternative sources of income.