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Wealthy Mexicans, alarmed by increasing numbers of kidnappings, are paying thousands of dollars to have tiny transmitters implanted under their skin so satellites can help locate them tied up in a safe house or stuffed in the trunk of a car.
More people, including rising numbers of middle-class Mexicans, are purchasing the tiny chip designed by the Mexican security firm Xega, whose sales soared 13 percent this year. The company said it had over 2,000 clients. Cynics say the chip is no more than a gadget that provides no real security purpose.
According to official statistics, kidnapping jumped nearly 40 percent between 2004 and 2007 in Mexico. The country is one of the worst for abductions ranking alongside conflict zones like Columbia and Iraq.
The crystal-encased chip which is the shape and size of a grain of rice, is injected into clients' bodies with a syringe. Radio signals are then transmitted from the chip to a bigger appliance carried by the client with a global positioning system (GPS) in it, according to Xega. The location of a person in distress can then be pinpointed by a satellite.
According to official statistics there were 751 kidnappings in Mexico last year. However, the independent crime research institute ICESI states the numbers could have surpassed 7,000.
According to Katherine Albrecht, a U.S. consumer privacy activist, the chip is a flashy, overpriced gadget that only identifies a person and is not able to locate someone without another, larger GPS device that can easily be found and destroyed by kidnappers.
She said the fear of kidnapping was influencing affluent Mexicans to buy a technology that had yet to be proved useful. "They are a prime target because they've got money and they've got a worry and you can combine those two and offer them a false sense of security which is exactly what this is," she said.
Outside Mexico, the U.S. company VeriChip Corp uses similar radio-wave equipment to detect critically ill patients at hospitals or locate elderly people who wander away from their homes.
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