With active RFID the chip would have its own power supply and emit a continuous signal, perhaps with the added capability of satellite tracking. The media will tell you that active RFID solutions are still in development and that it is years away yet. They forget, however, that it was one of their own who, in 1998, reported on a chip much more advanced than either Verichip or Digital Angel – indeed, one that was incredibly "active". The Sunday Times (London), 11 October 1998, sec. 1, p. 13, ran a story, "007 Implant to Protect Kidnap Targets," by reporters Maurice Chittenden and David Lloyd. It was a report about a company called Gen-Etics, who had produced a microchip implant called Sky-Eyes (based upon Mossad technology), trackable by satellite, and "made of 'synthetic and organic fiber'." The chip ran "on four milliamperes of neurophysiological  energy." http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/Melanson_Interview.htm

007 implant to protect kidnap targets

THE SUNDAY TIMES (London)
by Maurice Chittenden and David Lloyd  

THIS is the bleep that says: "Rescue me." A microchip under the skin that can help to locate hostages is being marketed to combat one of the world's biggest growth industries - there were a record 1,407 abductions for ransom worldwide last year, up 60% since 1990.

The victim's "little helper" uses natural body energy with James Bond-style technology devised by scientists working for Israeli intelligence.

Space satellites will follow the bleep to detect a victim's movements or hiding place. The information will then be relayed to a control centre to be used for a rescue operation.

The device has come too late for three British engineers and a New Zealand colleague abducted in Chechnya last weekend. But film stars and the children of millionaires are among 45 people, including several Britons, who have been approached and fitted with the chips in secret tests during the past three months. The chips, costing £5,000 a time, are being launched in Milan this week.

However, kidnap experts are divided on whether the Sky-Eye chip is just another fashion accessory for the painfully rich or a valuable weapon in the fight against extortion.

The Gen-Etics company, which makes the chip, says it is being targeted at people in the public eye such as Leonardo DiCaprio, the Titanic star whose family originates from an area of southern Italy steeped in kidnapping, and companies that send employees to potentially dangerous places such as Colombia, Mexico and Chechnya. The company developed the chip for commercial use after it was invented by Mossad, the Israeli secret service, and used by agents on special missions.

Nicholas Ventura, in charge of marketing the device, said: "Film stars like DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are the kind of personalities this is aimed at - basically millionaires, VIPs and captains of industry who for family or work reasons go to places where kidnap gangs are active."

He refused to identify any clients. Customers on his doorstep could include the Duchess of York, who regularly visits the castle of Count Gaddo della Gherardesca, her Tuscan boyfriend; Sting, the rock star, who has a villa in Tuscany; and Greta Scacchi, the Anglo-Italian actress born in Milan.

The 43 Europeans and two Americans who have so far adopted the chip had surgery under a light anaesthetic. Gen-Etics claims the surgery is intended to daze the patient and prevent him or her remembering exactly where the incision was made, so he cannot reveal the chip's location to his abductors even under torture.

Every chip is made of synthetic and organic fibres and measures 4mm by 4mm. It does not need a battery and runs instead on four milliamperes of neurophysiological energy.

Only a small scar is visible and the chip escapes detection by x-rays. It is inserted under the skin but not on areas that can be amputated, including the hands, nose and ears.

Posting an earlobe to the family of a victim is a favourite technique for kidnap gangs. John Paul Getty III, grandson of the oil billionaire and one of 700 people kidnapped in Italy in the past 30 years, suffered such a fate in 1973.

The whereabouts of the carrier are followed by six satellites through the global positioning system, which has a 150-metre margin of error and has previously been used to track the movements of stolen luxury cars. The absence of a signal suggests that the victim has been killed because the body no longer supplies the energy to make the chip function.

The Sky-Eye is seen as an alternative to surrounding the children of the rich and famous with teams of burly bodyguards. Donatella Versace, sister of the murdered Italian fashion designer, appears to be well aware of the risks. Her two children, Allegra - who inherited the larger part of her uncle Gianni's fortune - and Daniel, are watched over by a phalanx of security men whenever they step out of the family's 18th-century palazzo in Milan.

Others are more cynical about the microchip, however. Robert Davies, a special risks underwriter for Hiscox, an insurance group that holds 5,000 kidnap policies, said it might work in Britain or the United States but could prove hazardous in less developed countries, where victims were likely to be shot in rescue attempts and the police were sometimes in league with the kidnappers.

"We are aware that kidnap gangs in Mexico, the most sophisticated in the world, are searching victims for scars that might hide such devices. There is also the effect on morale if a victim thinks he will be quickly rescued but his family decides that would be a stupid thing to attempt," he said. Terry Waite, who was a hostage in Beirut for 5 1/2 years, said: "It is very dangerous because once kidnappers get to know about these things they will skin you alive to find them. There were rumours when I was kidnapped that I had been planted with locator devices.

"I was given rigorous searches, my clothes were changed and I even had my teeth checked."

The above story has been erased from the Sunday Times' website. Even the Wayback Machine's record of it has been expunged. (Both were there about 2 years ago, and when I started poking around and calling up the pages; they soon took care of that). The Chittenden and Lloyd story in the Sunday Times seems to be based upon a report in The Telegraph Journal a few days before.