Wealthy Mexicans have begun chipping themselves due to the growing concerns of kidnappings in Mexico.  So great are the concerns that the Mexican security firm, Xega, has seen a sales increase of 13% over the past year.

Katherine Albrecht, a U.S. consumer privacy activist, says the chip is a flashy, overpriced gadget that only identifies a person and cannot locate someone without another, bigger GPS device that kidnappers can easily find and destroy.

She said fear of kidnapping was driving well-off Mexicans to buy a technology that had yet to prove 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.

The problem with this system is that, while a person could hit a panic button before being kidnapped, all Xega can do is notify the police.  The person then still needs a bigger device to carry with them in order for law enforcement officials to find them.  The implanted chip is useless without it.  All a kidnapper needs to do is find the device on the victim and destroy it, making any attempt to find the victim useless.  Either that or cut off the body part with the chip in it.