How Can an Implanted Tag Be Removed From a Person Injected Without Consent?

Published: June 25, 2011

What recourse does a person have who has become the carrier of an RFID tag for the purpose of non-stop tracking? What can be done to prevent the tag from sending out signals to a lot of unknown people who have access to its ID number?

—Name withheld

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RFID tags injected under the skin of a human being or animal do not send out any signals. They are passive tags that require energy from a reader, and reflect back a signal to that device. So unless someone held a reader within a foot of the tag under your skin, no one could track you or receive any data from the tag.

As for removal, I would recommend that you see a doctor, who can make a small incision at the site at which you had the device originally implanted—there should be a mark there—and simply remove it.

—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal