Compulsory dog chipping is being sold as the magical solution to a list of problems inluding the number of stray dogs, dangerous dogs and as a way of tranforming irresponsible dog owners into responsible owners, but there is more to the proposals than meets the eye...

Animal testing and normalisation

Chipping animals on such a large scale as is being proposed by compulsory dog chipping amounts to a huge animal testing experiment. Chip companies will look to refine their technology in animals and normalise the public to their assertion that chipping is safe and serves whatever purpose they choose to market it on. Once they have created a level of acceptance in the public they can then expand chipping into other areas, no doubt ending with chipping humans. Chip companies driven by the profit motive will see the human chipping market as big business.

There have been recurrent attempts to introduce mandatory chipping of selected humans in the UK, but these have been defeated either due to public reaction or the fact that the proposals were technically not possible. See the below media articles:

The Guardian 17th November 2002
Surgical tags plan for sex offenders
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/nov/17/childrensservices.crime

The Times 16th July 2006
Police call for tracker chips in paedophiles
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article688425.ece

The Register 16th July 2006
'Let's track paedos with chip implants' - top cop fails tech test
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/16/acpo_jones_paedo_implant/

Independent on Sunday 13th January 2008
Prisoners 'to be chipped like dogs'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/prisoners-to-be-chipped-like-dogs-769977.html

Daily Mail 10th April 2008
Met Police officers to be 'microchipped' by top brass in Big Brother style tracking scheme
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-558597/Met-Police-officers-microchipped-brass-Big-Brother-style-tracking-scheme.html#ixzz0m7kah9Pi

In October 2004 the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of microchip implants in humans for medical purposes. In fact, American firemen, Mexican officials, Alzheimer patients, diabetics, bar patrons, employees, and others have been chipped. In addition, many companies have patents for tracking humans. Also in 2004 clubbers at the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona were able to pay 125 euros to have a VeriChip implanted in their body so that they could purchase drinks by scanning the chip.

The Register 10th June 2002
First people injected with ID chips, sales drive kicks off
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/06/10/first_people_injected_with_id/

CNN 9th June 2004
Technology gets under clubbers' skin
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/06/09/spain.club/

Because the threat of mandatory human micro-chipping is so serious, some US states have already passed laws banning it. These states include Wisconsin, North Dakota, California, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

Ars Technica 4th September 2007
California outlaws the forced subdermal RFID tagging of humans
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/09/california-outlaws-forced-rfid-tagging-of-humans.ars