A Saudi Arabian inventor has applied in Germany for a patent for a human tracking microchip that could be used to track wanted criminals. The Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger dubbed the device a “killer chip,” which it noted also could be employed to track “political opponents, defectors, domestic help, and Saudi Arabians who don’t return home from pilgrimages."
After implantation, the chip would send out coded radio waves that satellites can track to confirm a person’s identity and location. A second chip would release a deadly poison if a security risk is involved.
The Germany newspaper The Local reported that the macabre invention probably will not be approved by patent officials because of a law prohibiting inventions that violate public morals. The patent application became known after it was published according to German law, which requires it be made public 18 months after the original application, which was in October, 2007.
The request for a patent was entitled “Implantation of electronic chips in the human body for the purposes of determining its geographical location.” The Jeddah-based inventor explained that the invention comes at the same time that “the number of people sought by security forces has increased.”
The Saudi inventor insisted in his application, “I apply for these reasons and for reasons of state security and the security of citizens.”
The law firm that filed the original application for the Saudi inventors told The Local it has “resigned from representation of this case.”