An RFID tag is an excellent way of labelling a furry animal, no doubt about it, and a national database administered by regulated and trustworthy professionals is an excellent way of making it possible to prove ownership, no doubt about that, either. However, as I see it, it's the database plus regulated professionals that's the essential ingredient here, not the particular way that labelling is implemented.
Though I introduced the thought myself, perhaps removing microchips is not all that relevant. If there was no reliable database and vets were all corrupt then you could have an animal with six RFID tags attached to it, and six people each claiming to be the owner of each of those tags, and how would that help anyone prove ownership?
Nevertheless, if one did want to remove an RFID tag, I'd hope there would be a better way of locating the thing than X-rays. It does, after all, contain a transponder and I seem to recall that when RFID tags were first proposed one of their advantages was supposed to be that you could use them to precisely locate things. If someone had attached an RFID tag to my property and I was worried that they wanted to do something nefarious, how would you recommend that I locate and remove/destroy that tag?
> Nevertheless, if one did want to remove an RFID tag, I'd hope there would be a better way of locating the thing than X-rays.
Ultrasound might be useful, too, especially for determining the depth of the tag, but most vets would reach for the radiograph. The ultrasound head will be right over top of the tag, which would make it difficult to mark the location and see what you're doing during surgery.
> It does, after all, contain a transponder and I seem to recall that when RFID tags were first proposed one of their advantages was supposed to be that you could use them to precisely locate things.*
RFID provides location tracking by being an easily scanned unique identifier, not by transmitting location data. You'd need to have a reader within a few inches of the tag to locate it, at which point your nefarious actor is fully in posession of the pet (just as they were when they implanted the tag). It could locate your animal as having last gone through a pet door in one direction or the other with a reader on each side of the gate, it can't put a dot on a map for a wardriving Cruella DeVille. Think permanent, easy-to-read barcode sticker, not GPS transmitter.
> If someone had attached an RFID tag to my property and I was worried that they wanted to do something nefarious, how would you recommend that I locate and remove/destroy that tag?
Bring your animal to your vet. They'll recognize you and your pet's history (you are up to date on your vaccinations and animal registration, correct?) and will be able to scan and see your microchip, as well as the new data. Then you can file a police report.
What if I'm worried that someone has attached an RFID tag to my car, my bicycle, or an item of clothing?
(The tags used in animals might only be readable at a range of a few inches, but: "Gen2 tags can have a read range of over 16 meters or 52 feet when using the full 4 Watt EIRP legally allowed on the readers by FCC and other global regulators"; "a model using a beam-steerable phased-array antenna can interrogate passive tags at a distance of 600 feet or more")
Though I introduced the thought myself, perhaps removing microchips is not all that relevant. If there was no reliable database and vets were all corrupt then you could have an animal with six RFID tags attached to it, and six people each claiming to be the owner of each of those tags, and how would that help anyone prove ownership?
Nevertheless, if one did want to remove an RFID tag, I'd hope there would be a better way of locating the thing than X-rays. It does, after all, contain a transponder and I seem to recall that when RFID tags were first proposed one of their advantages was supposed to be that you could use them to precisely locate things. If someone had attached an RFID tag to my property and I was worried that they wanted to do something nefarious, how would you recommend that I locate and remove/destroy that tag?