In August 2023, news spread across Russian social networks that foreign TV channels had made reports about the need to microchip minors as part of the fight against human trafficking. We decided to check if this is actually true.
The news spread most strongly on Telegram, where relevant posts appeared in the channels “Heavenly"(159,000 views at the time of writing the analysis), "Kot Kostyan - official channel"(84,000), "Gossip"(78,000), "Freshness"(62,000), "Informant"(52,000), etc. Users also wrote about calls to implant chips in children blogging platforms and social networks (“VKontakte", Twitter). Almost all posts are accompanied by the same video recording - presumably the same report in which they talk about the benefits of the controversial idea. Some sources indicate that calls for microchipping of minors are made in general in the West, while others indicate that it is specifically in the United States.
The video, which lasts one and a half minutes, consists of a short introduction by the presenter in the studio, as well as a report about GA CHIP - a program in which specialists collect data on children in order to transfer information to the police in case of their disappearance and thereby facilitate the search. Participation in it is voluntary and free for residents of the American state of Georgia. At the same time, the video in the posts is presented without translation or at least subtitles, therefore, in order to check what exactly the presenter, correspondent and speakers are talking about, viewers need to know English at a level sufficient to understand the speech by ear.
The channel's logo is not visible in the video, but the report contains several interviews where the speakers are holding a microphone with the inscription Newsday. Thanks to a Google search, this video can be found on YouTube, where it was published back in July 2010 on NewsdayNorthFulton. This is a small television station that covered events in Fulton, Georgia. Now his website is specified in your YouTube profile does not work, so perhaps the TV channel itself no longer exists. Verified could not find any reports on the need for microchipping of children in other American media.
Moreover, even in this video from 13 years ago there is not a word about chipping. Program organizers describe how they help families collect color photographs, digital fingerprints, identifying information, DNA swabs, dental imprints and other data about their children. The process takes place in the presence of parents and takes 10–15 minutes, and the collected data is recorded on a medium (the video refers to a CD) and transferred to the minor’s representatives.
What was said in the report coincides with the information presented at the official website and in brochure GA CHIP program - there is also not a word about implanting microchips in children. Moreover, the description of the program specifies that all data is strictly confidential and after preparing a file for the child’s family or guardians, the information collected about him is irrevocably deleted from the organization’s database.
The GA CHIP program operates in Georgia (in fact, the letters GA in its name are the designation of this state), but there are similar initiatives in other states, for example MO CHIP — in Missouri and TN CHIP — in Tennessee. Their websites explicitly state that they do not use any invasive microchips. The Tennessee chapter explains on its website homepage that CHIP is an acronym for Child Identification Program and has nothing to do with chipping.
Thus, there are no calls for mass microchipping of children, which are written about by social network users, in the Western media. The video that usually accompanies posts with such statements was filmed on a regional American television channel 13 years ago. At the same time, in the report itself there is not a word about chipping, nor on the information resources of the CHIP program, which operates in several US states. On the contrary, some of these sites explicitly explain that no chips are implanted in children, and the name is an abbreviation that has nothing to do with chipping.
Cover photo: YouTube NewsdayNorthFulton
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