Pet Microchips have no privacy or health risks

If you’re a pet owner, why would you NOT want your pet to have a microchip?

I’m writing this because, the girl that was cutting my hair the other day said, “she seen” me on facebook and told me the reasons why everybody hates on microchips. 

I was not aware that anyone “hates on” microchips, but if there were any reasons to be apprehensive about having a microchip implanted in your pet, 2 reasons could be supposed privacy issues or health related risks. 

Learn about the health implications and safety of microchipping your cat in our specialized article.

Beginning with the former, microchips are not tracking devices. They are not GPS. They are RFID implants that can only be read by one specific microchip brand’s scanner and the range in which they are read is very short. Regardless, the only information that is read is a string of digits that can be then input into whichever corresponding database that brand of microchip is registered to and if a match is found that registry then needs to be called and the people employed at that registry will then call the rightful pet owner. Private information is never revealed. That being said, microchips are about as much of a threat to your privacy as the license plate is on your car-actually less, because your license plate is in plane view. There is NO privacy issue. 

Suspicion over health risks are actually a derivative of the former and can be tracked down to the the initial fake news sources that broke rumors of microchips causing cancer. One of those sources came from a self proclaimed “privacy expert” – Dr. Katherine Albrecht on her  antichips.com blog.

Of equal credibility (irony) dogs natural magaizine mentions “published scientific studies and adverse microchip reports recorded by the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) prove otherwise.” However, they failed to footnote this and I didn’t find anything online of the sort. I did, however, find that the AVMA- totally states the opposite. 

“Tumors associated with microchips in two dogs and two cats have been reported, but in at least one dog and one cat the tumor couldn’t be directly linked to the microchip itself (and may have been caused by something else).” AVMA’s literature review on Microchipping of Animals.

Lastly, the research I did and primary sources I asked about these two topics, all told me that any foreign material introduced to an animal- albeit an antibiotic, vaccination, or cactus needle can cause an inflammatory reaction that can RARELY transform into cancer. A simple search will lead you to a blog article written by a Dr. Casey McDowell that literally says the exact same thing before going on to mention that 3 of his pets are all microchipped. 

Government paranoia or religious hokum? Possibly the subject of another blog post, but not one I will be taking any more than 20 minutes to write anytime soon. Until then keep in mind there are 164 million dogs and cats in the U.S., one third of them will wind up reported missing, and nearly 80% will NEVER be found. As a pet owner- wouldn’t you want your pet’s chip to be scanned if he were to ever wind up missing?

Microchips store no other information other than a unique identification number. Unlike humans that have unique fingerprints, pets do not.

That being said for humans, dusting for fingerprints is far more productive than scanning for a microchip.

Your privacy is much more at risk – potentially – with fingerprints and fingerprints are left on everything touched. So in that regard they are more useful for solving a crime. Privacy and security is not really an issue.

Why microchip your pet?

Unlike humans, pets do not have finger prints so microchips serve as the only permanent form of identification for them. The missing pet problem is an epidemic and microchips are the only way to resolve this problem because they will work 100% of the time if scanned and properly registered. They are also implanted. Nevertheless, to those that know little about the technology it is kind of a scary thought as they feel it can be a precursor to human microchip implantation. Rest assured, there is not need to implant a human with a microchip becuase there is nothing that can be accomplished with a microchip already that cazn not be achieved with biometric fingerprint scanning technology. 

Mark of the beast

There seems to be a degree of fundamentalist-Christian thinking, however, that the “antichrist” and his followers will be marked thusly. According to some, microchips have been a “meme” since Revelations were written about the “number of the beast” or “mark of the beast.” This very common “trope” is more dystopian science fiction and fantasy than reality. 

Keep in mind, during the time when the mark of the beast or any other biblical prophecy came about, the uniqueness of fingerprints or DNA was unknown.

This cockamamie way of thinking is the worst kind. 

Other smart questions

Is it possible to upload information into a microchip implant to perform superpowers?

The short answer to the question is absolutely not… unless you can update a microchip wirelessly and refresh it constantly, this will never happen. 

An interesting book called the big switch from Edison to Google has an interesting section on this very topic. The idea to perhaps do internet searches with your brain is a human superpower like, but it will not make you any smarter than say just surfing the web all day. It will also yield bias and ignorance as recommended searches are based on machine learning of user behavior.

Ignorance and bias… prejudice etc… is far from super.
True intelligence is the ability to make sense of new information.

Microchips virtually hold no memory other than a unique numeric code.

Microchips are not a precursor to “big brother” like government tracking or anything of the sort. They do not track anything. They are not GPS! There is no such thing as an implantable microchip with GPS. Microchips can only be read at short distances (inches) and that is only if the reader can actually read the microchip. 

Q: Why don’t the police use an RFID or barcodes on the human body to identify people?

Because humans have fingerprints. It’s totally unnecessary.

Q: From a security standpoint, why would someone implant a microchip under their skin?

There is no reason to. In regards to pet theft, however, microchips serve as the only permanent form of ID, provided they are scanned by a scanner that can read the brand of the chip, it’s frequency, or whether or not it’s encrypted.

That being said for humans, dusting for fingerprints is far more productive than scanning for a microchip.

Fingerprints are just left on everything touched. So in that regard they are more useful for solving a crime. Privacy and security is not really an issue.

Conclusion

• There are no consequences of human microchip implantation becuase there is no need to implant a human with a microchip
• There are no advantages for having microchips inplanted humans becuase humans have fingerprints
• There are no health risks implanting microchips
• There should be no ethical issues regarding microchipping humans because it is unnecessary to microchip humans
• There are no human implanted data chips and privacy concerns
• There will never be a microchip for humans mandatory