PositiveID

Company history

PositiveID, formerly known as VeriChip Corporation, was formed in 2009 through the merger of VeriChip and Steel Vault Corporation. At the time of the merger in November 2009, the company changed its name to PositiveID Corporation.

In May 2011, PositiveID acquired California-based MicroFluidic Systems (MFS), founded in 2001, which specializes in the development and production of automated instruments for detecting and processing biological samples. MFS’ core technology is used for airborne pathogen detection, rapid clinical diagnostics, and sample preparation applications.

Privacy concerns

Certain privacy advocates have raised concerns regarding potential abuse of PositiveID, with some warning that adoption by governments as a compulsory identification program could lead to erosion of civil liberties. In addition, it has been shown that PositiveID's lack of security features made it susceptible to cloning, which could present a risk of identity theft. At the same time if these security features were to be increased the chips could begin to play a major role in Identity Theft protection. Three states in the United States of America have passed anti-chipping legislation, protecting against mandated implantation. These states are California, Wisconsin, and North Dakota.

Health effects

According to Wired News online, and the Associated Press, there have been research articles over the last ten years that found a connection between the chips and possible cancer. When mice and rats were injected with glass-encapsulated RFID transponders, like those made by PositiveID, they "developed malignant, fast-growing, lethal cancers in up to 1% to 10% of cases" at the site at which the microchip was injected or to which it had migrated. However, the 10% rate was obtained with hemizygous p53-deficient mice, the counterpart of humans with the Li-Fraumeni syndrome, and rates near 1% were more typical. The PositiveID corporation responded to this report, which caused a 40% drop in their stock value, by stating that rodent data had been provided to the FDA and did not reflect the effect of the chips in humans or pets. Dogs, alternatively, are more resistant to the formation of malignant soft tissue tumors in response to foreign body insult. Induction of sarcomas by foreign bodies has been reported in humans, and has been described as analogous to rodent foreign body-associated sarcomas and is fairly infrequent. Resolution of the question may be hindered by the long delay in onset of sarcoma induction or other deleterious side effects, analogous to the controversy in the mid 20th century over asbestos exposure and predisposition to pleural abnormalities such as malignant mesothelioma.

Tommy Thompson, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, supported PositiveID as a "useful tool in sharing medical information with health care providers in emergency situations". Thompson sat on the board of directors of PositiveID's parent company, Digital Angel, for two years. In June 2007, the American Medical Association declared that "implantable radio frequency identification (RFID) devices may help to identify patients, thereby improving the safety and efficiency of patient care, and may be used to enable secure access to patient clinical information".

According to the FDA, implantation of PositiveID poses potential medical downsides. Electrical hazards, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) incompatibility, adverse tissue reaction, and migration of the implanted transponder are just a few of the potential risks associated with the PositiveID implant device, according to an October 12, 2004 letter issued by the FDA, which stated that "electrical currents may be induced in conductive metal implants that can cause potentially severe patient burns."

The Discovery Channel's MythBusters explored whether an RFID tag will explode if placed inside an MRI. The Build Team inserted an RFID tag into pig flesh and placed inside the MRI, but failed to get any results. Team member Kari Byron then had an RFID tag placed inside her arm and was placed inside the MRI. The RFID appeared unaffected, and left Kari seemingly unharmed.

Religious concerns

Some activists, including Mark Dice, the author of a book titled The Resistance Manifesto, make a link between the PositiveID and the Biblical Mark of the Beast, prophesied to be a future requirement for buying and selling, and a key element of the Book of Revelation.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Gary Wohlscheid, president of These Last Days Ministries, has argued that "Out of all the technologies with potential to be the mark of the beast, PositiveID has got the best possibility right now".